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Mexican cartels running pot farms in U.S. national forest Drug czar stands in pot garden: "These aren't Cheech and Chong plants" Authorities say Mexican drug cartels send illegals to grow marijuana in forest $1 billion worth of marijuana plants destroyed in Sequoia National Forest, cops say "They're willing to kill anybody who gets in their way," drug czar says
From Dan Simon American Morning Correspondent
SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, California (CNN) -- Beyond the towering trees that have stood here for thousands of years, an intense drug war is being waged.
Illegal immigrants connected to Mexico's drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marijuana in the heart of one of America's national treasures, authorities say. It's a booming business that, federal officials say, feeds Mexico's most violent drug traffickers.
"These aren't Cheech and Chong plants," said John Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy. "People who farm now are not doing this for laughs, despite the fact Hollywood still thinks that. They're doing it to make a lot of money."
Walters spoke from a "marijuana garden" tucked deep into the Sequoia National Forest, about a two- to four-hour hike from the nearest road, far removed from the giant sequoias the region is best known for. Watch Hollywood needs to chill out, get serious about pot »
Ten thousand marijuana plants, some 5 feet tall, dotted the mountainside's steep terrain amid thick brush, often located near streams. This garden's street value is worth an estimated $40 million, authorities said.
Walters clutched three plants he said were worth $12,000 on the streets.
"This is about serious criminal organizations," Walters said. "They're willing to kill anybody who gets in their way. They're taking money back to those who kill prosecutors, judges and law enforcement." See photos of pot farm sweep in heart of U.S. national treasure »
Over the last eight days, a federal, state and county law enforcement initiative called Operation LOCCUST has eradicated 420,000 marijuana plants here worth more than $1 billion on the street. By comparison, authorities last year eradicated 330,000 plants over the six-month growing season, said Lt. Mike Boudreaux of the Tulare County Sheriff's Department.
Authorities have arrested 38 people and have seized 29 automatic weapons, high-powered rifles and other guns, Boudreaux said.
For years, Mexican drug cartels have used the remote forest to conduct and conceal their business. But the pot production has intensified because it has become harder and harder to smuggle marijuana across the U.S.-Mexico border, Walters said.
"They come into our own national parks and risk the lives of sheriffs and others," Walters said. Watch Mexican pot farms in U.S. forest »
Sequoia National Forest is located more than 350 miles from the border -- named in honor of its 38 groves of giant sequoia trees dating back thousands of years. The forest covers 1.2 million acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Some of the workers have established residency in the United States, Boudreaux said. Most are in the country illegally, he said, many brought for the sole purpose of growing pot, maintaining production and protecting the camp.
"They're using family or very trusted family friends. They don't just use anybody," he said.
Authorities arrested nine people in one bust recently, all of them brothers or cousins ranging in age from 20 to 27, Boudreaux said.
Boudreaux described a sophisticated web in which workers and supplies are delivered to the camps by separate groups of people who don't know all the details about the marijuana operation.
"You're recruited in for that purpose as long as you're trusted. ... Each person has his function."
Once at the national forest, the growers carry with them everything they need -- tents, food, guns, fertilizer, irrigation hose and marijuana seeds. Armed men keep watch over the gardens day and night during planting season, officials say.
They dam mountain creeks to create pools, then siphon the water into miles of gravity-fed hoses that lead to smaller tubing to irrigate the plants. Nearly all of the marijuana plants have individual drip lines.
"The people that are growing this are good at what they do," said Boudreaux.
The battle is being waged by a coalition of local, state and federal agencies. They rip up and remove the intricate irrigation systems, eradicate the plants and develop intelligence on the workers.
"The goal is not just to eradicate the plants but to go after the organizations," Walters said.
What's different this year from years past, officials say, is that they're working to destroy the entire infrastructure of the marijuana grown in this region, from the irrigation systems to capturing the growers to ripping up the plants. And they're trying to get at the heart of the cartels.
Walters said they have a "unique relationship" with Mexican law enforcement to go after organized crime -- that they will take names of those arrested here and try to work back to the crime families.
"In the past, all we've been able to do is what we call 'whack and stack,'" said Bill Wittman, sheriff of Tulare County.
Wittman says he has had "well over 200 people in the field every day" eradicating the plants and removing the irrigation systems as part of the operation.
"We're not just pulling the plants, we're targeting mid-level and upper-management of these trafficking organizations," Boudreaux said.
How do they find the gardens in such remote areas? They use aerial surveillance, human intelligence and other means. "Often times, we have people who will lead us to these gardens," Boudreaux said.
Allen Ishida, a member of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, said the illegal activity is alarming.
"I want to state that the guys growing the marijuana are not the guys I went to college with," he said. "These are organized drug cartels out of Mexico."
Boudreaux says authorities are furious cartels are operating in a U.S. forest.
"It's something that's troubling for many of us in law enforcement," he said. "You have illegal criminal activity in the mountain regions not only destroying the natural beauty of the landscape but as well as the potential for this product to reach the children of this community."
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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No offense but you make it sound like this is something new... There have been regular "white" American farmers doing this sort of thing for years...
posted
An not just a few irregular "white" Americans.
Breaking the law crosses all sorts of boundaries and refuses to recognize that race is such.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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Another great reason to support the liberal safe haven cities program in california!
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: An not just a few irregular "white" Americans.
Breaking the law crosses all sorts of boundaries and refuses to recognize that race is such.
Exactly Bgeesus... but this article made it a point to put race into it instead of being unbiased and saying that it's not only Mexicans doing it & showing other examples... wouldn't u agree?
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Bull****.. homegrown with no processing? much more profit margin... Whisper the word hydro and your quarter bag goes for eighty rather than the usual forty. Every moron pot head thinks if it comes uncompressed then it has to be "Hydro". Besides.. that's not the point. CIA cares nothing for margins.. nor profits.
Posts: 2965 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: An not just a few irregular "white" Americans.
Breaking the law crosses all sorts of boundaries and refuses to recognize that race is such.
Exactly Bgeesus... but this article made it a point to put race into it instead of being unbiased and saying that it's not only Mexicans doing it & showing other examples... wouldn't u agree?
You seem to always wanna play the race card. The point was that these pot fields were planted by illegal immigrants smuggled into the US by Mexican Drug Cartels for the express purpose of growing pot. Also that the Mexican Drug Cartels are operating inside the US with apparent impunity.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: An not just a few irregular "white" Americans.
Breaking the law crosses all sorts of boundaries and refuses to recognize that race is such.
Exactly Bgeesus... but this article made it a point to put race into it instead of being unbiased and saying that it's not only Mexicans doing it & showing other examples... wouldn't u agree?
You seem to always wanna play the race card. The point was that these pot fields were planted by illegal immigrants smuggled into the US by Mexican Drug Cartels for the express purpose of growing pot. Also that the Mexican Drug Cartels are operating inside the US with apparent impunity.
I don't play the race card... the media and Gov't do... I merely point it out... they make it a emphasize that "Mexicans" "Hispanics" and/or "illegal immigrants aka hispanics" are the only growers of marijuana for profit in this country and that is simply not true... there are farmers in the Old South who do it as well and i'm sure non-Mexicans/hispanics in other parts of the country... but is that reported by the media or our Gov't? no... why is that? ask yourself that... maybe because it is a election year and Mexico/illegal immigration will be one of the important issues other then economy etc...
Do any of these "well respected" and unbiased media outlets report about Marijuana being smuggled from Canada or Canadian drug dealers growing marijuana in the northeast or any state along the Canadian border? .. nope ... why is that even though that is happening as well? ...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Do any of these "well respected" and unbiased media outlets report about Marijuana being smuggled from Canada or Canadian drug dealers growing marijuana in the northeast or any state along the Canadian border? .. nope ... why is that even though that is happening as well? ...
quote:Originally posted by glassman: Do any of these "well respected" and unbiased media outlets report about Marijuana being smuggled from Canada or Canadian drug dealers growing marijuana in the northeast or any state along the Canadian border? .. nope ... why is that even though that is happening as well? ...
and i posted a link the other day about a Tenn pot grower that was using a 800,000$ cave to grow pot...
I never said it's not reported that others do it... i do say it's rarely reported... but you have to admit it does not draw any interest compared to one when words like "mexican", "hispanic" and "illegal immigrant" does.. even though both are problems Glass... and Pagan certainly did not post this thread because he wanted to make aware that all races engage in this act... when he and others do that then i'll admit they are unbiased...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Mexican and Columbian Cartels are very real Mach. in case you missed it? there's been running gun battles along the Mexican borders, police are being killed. i suppose we should ignore that?
Drug cartels using submarines to smuggle cocaine
Updated Sat. Jul. 19 2008 11:05 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Airplanes, boats and people have long been used to smuggle drugs, but drug dealers are now using another form of transportation -- submarines.
The subs aren't exactly as high-tech as the ones from "The Hunt for Red October" but Mexican and American authorities say they are effective enough.
The Mexican Navy caught a Colombian drug sub this week -- packed with an estimated 5.8 tonnes of cocaine. That's about a quarter of all the cocaine estimated to enter Canada in a year.
On a tip from the U.S., the Mexicans found the sub 200 kilometers off the coast of Oaxaca, and in a daring raid, soldiers rappelled from helicopters on to the deck of the sub and arrested four smugglers before they could scuttle their vessel. Mexican Navy officials said they knew of the vessels but had never captured one before. The U.S. caught one last year.
It is believed that Colombian drug cartels have about 40 of the subs.
The custom-built subs do not fully submerge but are so low to the water, less than half a metre, that they avoid radar detection.
This forces anti-drug authorities to use aerial surveillance on the high seas - and there is a lot of sea to cover.
The vessel caught Wednesday was about 10-metres long. Costing about US$1 million, the boats are usually painted to blend in with the color of the water, U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Thad Allen told reporters in Washington on Friday.
Canada and the U.S. account for about 50 per cent of cocaine use in the world.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - A Mexican police officer working as a hit man for drug gangs killed one of his police colleagues on Wednesday in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, police said.
Francisco Ventura was shot and killed by gunmen in twosport utility vehicles as he drove home early on Wednesday inCiudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas. Federal policearrested three men following the shootout, including the policeofficer accused of leading the gunmen.
City police declined to give more details, but CiudadJuarez Mayor Jose Reyes said the discovery of a police officerworking as a hit MAN showed the urgent need for a "totalcleansing" of the city's police force.
"We know there are officers who are in the pay of organizedcrime and that is why we need to flush out bad police," Reyestold reporters.
Despite the deployment of 3,000 troops and federal policein Ciudad Juarez this year, more than 550 people have beenkilled in drug violence in the city, Mexico's most lethal frontin a drug war that has killed 1,900 people nationwide in 2008.
Associated Press OJINAGA, Mexico - This hardscrabble border town welcomed 400 soldiers when they arrived four months ago to stop a wave of drug violence that brought daytime gun battles to its main street.
The frustration boiled over last week. More than 1,000 people marched through the streets carrying signs begging President Felipe Calderon for protection from his own troops.
seems to me that if pot was legalised? it would amount to the same thing as drilling our own oil...
of course we can't legalise meth and heroin and coke.... but we would be able to spend resources on fighting them that we now have to spend on weed too...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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it is disputed, but some historians place the opiate addiction rates as high as 50% of the adult population at the turn of the last century (1900)...
thing is? since it was cheap and available? people didn't rob stagecoaches to get it...
i have a friend who's a pharmacist and she says that pills that cost her a nickel wholesale sell for 50$ on the street...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: Another great reason to support the liberal safe haven cities program in california!
Hope you never get cancer and need medicinal marijuana...
I can get a script for medical right now in California for issues related to multiple tours. However, from what im told ANYONE can get one now for anything.
This issue here is more along the lines of illegal immigration and not medicinal marijuana.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: it is disputed, but some historians place the opiate addiction rates as high as 50% of the adult population at the turn of the last century (1900)...
thing is? since it was cheap and available? people didn't rob stagecoaches to get it...
i have a friend who's a pharmacist and she says that pills that cost her a nickel wholesale sell for 50$ on the street...
I'm dying to know what she charges for them retail? Bet it isn't 10 cents.
(I know for fact that the mark up at pharmacies in Alabama in the 70s was 1200%.)
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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This thread reminds me that back about 30 years ago, the City of Fort Worth found that a huge annual planting of quit pretty flowers around a public fountain in a downtown city park had been maintained and harvested at night by an individual for a couple of decades. The pretty flowers were opium poppies, the yield had been very valuable, and had been distributed through the city.
(He was not an illegal alien, by the way.....or black or Mexican or anything particularly note worthy or differnt)
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: Mexican and Columbian Cartels are very real Mach. in case you missed it? there's been running gun battles along the Mexican borders, police are being killed. i suppose we should ignore that?
I'm quite aware of all those things Glass... I'm a true crime buff and read alot of books on the subject. Latest one I read was on the Cali Cartel who were rivals to the Medellin Cartel/Pablo Escobar.
But anyways what I am trying to show is that it's not a Mexican/illegal immigration issue. When it's shown in national media news it promotes racism and prejudice. Everything of our society's ills are always blamed on illegal immigrants and you know they are Glass. That is why stories like this one makes national news and not the ones about Canadian pot dealers or southern Farmer pot dealers which are only reported regionally or locally so not all of use are aware of them doing it. Doesn't make for sensational news i suppose to sell more newspapers and such and certainly doesn't evoke as much emotions in a election year.
Face it or not history in this country has shown that when a new immigrant group comes here they are soon afterward blamed for that society's ills only. Be it drugs, disease, taxes, education, crime, etc.. etc.. I'm not saying that immigrants ,illegal or not, do not contribute to these ills but they are not the only ones by no means and not the majority by no means as well.Stories like this cause a mass hysteria about such people and not anyone else who also do the same thing.
I by no means do not say that the cartels are not a problem and are not violent. I know they are on both counts. As for the gun battles going on along the Mexican/USA border, that brings up a interesting thing. Where do you think those guns come from that the cartels use? Yes the good ole USA. I read a article about it recently and I never thought about such a thing because we only think the drug aspect of it. We say cut the drug supply and the drug problem will be solved. How about cutting the gun supply to these cartels? It's a interesting article.. they supply us with drugs and we supply them with guns yet they are the bad guys only...
quote:Originally posted by glassman: Everything of our society's ills are always blamed on illegal immigrants and you know they are Glass.
Mach, that's just true... futhermore? i see no mass hysteria..
Not yet, just pretty much came out... wait till the elections get closer and closer and someone might bring this issue up to either McC or Obama... my guess Canadian/Souther traffickers won't be brought up...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: This thread reminds me that back about 30 years ago, the City of Fort Worth found that a huge annual planting of quit pretty flowers around a public fountain in a downtown city park had been maintained and harvested at night by an individual for a couple of decades. The pretty flowers were opium poppies, the yield had been very valuable, and had been distributed through the city.
(He was not an illegal alien, by the way.....or black or Mexican or anything particularly note worthy or differnt)
And that reminds me of just a few years ago when my neighbor decided to grow some. He ordered seeds of "Papaver Somniferum" from Thompson & Morgan (I don't think they offer them anymore) and grew them. Over the summer we learned how to extract the oil from the pods by just barely cutting into the membrane with a razor blade and letting it ooze out. You could do it a number of times with a single pod. We were doing this more out of curiosity than anything else by the way.
Anyway, he'd take what he'd harvest, roll it into a little black ball and store it in an empty glass jar on his workbench out in his garage. Over the summer the black ball built up a bit and some more little balls were added in until one day his wife happened to see it and threw it away thinking it was a jar with a bunch of mouse turds in it. Talk about depressed. His whole summers worth of work went out with the garbage one Monday morning. Every other flower that they grew that year were neglected but man, those poppies were tended to daily and just flourished.
Posts: 5729 | From: Wisconsin | Registered: Sep 2003
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