Mexican Drug Cartel Pot farm bust near popular recreation area - Oregon

Police round up $12.5 million in marijuana (2:35 p.m.)

Medford Mail Tribune ( Medford, Oregon)

Police seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million on Monday and arrested two armed men they found at the gardens.

Rafael Santoya-Pineda and Noel Tadia-Arreguin are in Jackson County Jail on immigration holds today.

The plants, each 4 to 6 feet tall, grew in scattered gardens on three acres of Bureau of Land Management property near Hyatt Lake, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. Plants of that size can produce about a pound of marijuana, which would have a value of around $5,000 on the street at the retail level, he said.

Officials had watched the growing operation, believed to be linked to a Mexican drug cartel, and swept in Monday to destroy it just before harvest time, sheriff's Lt. Pat Rowland said.

SWAT teams from Jackson and Douglas counties and Oregon State Police, along with officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted Monday's raid.

Investigators pulled out the plants, hoisted them in nets with a helicopter and filled a 10-yard dump truck. The plants were taken to a mill and burned, Winters said. Evidence also was collected at the scene during the day-long police effort.

Trackback!

Invasion - The Mexican border has moved 800 miles north

Our national forests have been invaded by Mexican drug cartels, aided by MS-13 gangbangers and AWOL Mexican military growing massive marijuana farms. Last year we wrote an article, "Green cards and gangs" which was followed up by Michelle Malkin's article " Gangland".

The photos here were taken by Sheriff Rick Riggins in Siskiyou County, California during raids of these farms . He has graciously allowed us to present them.

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2006/04/invasion-mexican-border-has-moved-800.html