Armed Mexican Cartels take more US land, resources
All over this nation this summer!!
Detectives take down pot grow in Angeles Forest
ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST - Decked out in fatigues and climbing gear, sheriff's detectives and U.S. Forest Service officers Friday took down an about 4-acre marijuana grow in Cow Canyon.
As a Sheriff's helicopter circled overhead, the 11-member Marijuana Enforcement Team pushed through a steep half mile of thick brush to access about three plots and destroy close to 650 marijuana plants growing near Mount Baldy.
"This stuff would go straight to the street. The excessive availability of marijuana on the street is just nauseating," said L.A. County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Hannemann.
It's unknown how many pot grows are in the forest, but authorities are often tipped off by hikers, he said. The team goes on about one operation a week.
Parts of the grow site were terraced and plants were dotted through brush.
Makeshift reservoirs and black piping brought water to plants, some of which were about six feet tall. A tent was set up for shelter and items like shoes, drink cans, dish soap, instant noodle soup cups and other trash were strewn about.
Marijuana was hung to dry near the tent.
The creek that runs through the site was dammed and polluted by the pot growers, Hannemann said. The team suspected the person living there and maintaining the grow had fled just before the 8 a.m. arrival of the detectives.
A hand radio programmed to a Spanish talk station was left behind and was still on.
Chemicals at the site, such as fertilizer and rodent poison, pollute the forest and kill wildlife, detectives said. The pot growers are often armed and sometimes shoot animals for food and self-defense.
Drug cartels south of the border often run the grows, detectives said.
"It's mostly controlled by Mexican drug cartels who fund it and profit from it," said L.A. County Sheriff's Detective Scott Schulze.
Most people hired to stay at the site and maintain the plants are Mexican nationals paid by the cartels, Schulze said.
The team pulled all the plants and was about to have them flown out by helicopter. But a lightning strike from a passing thunderstorm west of the grow forced an early departure.
Smoke was seen but no fire was confirmed, a U.S. Forest Service official said.
Hannemann said a reclamation team from the Forest Service will return to clean up the site
http://www.whittierdailynews.
Mexican Drug Cartels Operate In Tri-State
Cartels Establish Grow Operation In Rural Ohio
.Authorities said the problem is they rarely catch anyone working at those campsites. They see evidence, tents, cooking and cultivation areas, but the culprits are long gone.Muskingum County deputies prosecuted seven men after a traffic stop in September 2008. A Crooksville patrolman and a Perry County deputy were investigating a hit-and-run crash involving seven Hispanic men in one car. The deputies said they smelled marijuana and saw what looked like marijuana. A drug dog then tipped officers to even more pot.Because deputies had found a large outdoor marijuana farm just that summer, they did a routine air search by helicopter to determine whether more grows were in the same vicinity as that traffic stop.They found more than 5,000 plants in neighboring Muskingum County, enough to fill four dump trucks. All seven men pleaded guilty to various marijuana possession charges. One man served time. Muskingum County is still investigating.Authorities got another break on Sept. 21. Eleven men, including their alleged ringleader, were arrested near Logan and Muskingum counties. It was a hunter who found the plants and called police.The men are being held without bond while agents determine who they work for and how they made their way to Ohio. All 11 suspects face charges of conspiracy to cultivate more than 100 marijuana plants, a crime punishable by at least five years and up to 40 years in prison if found guilty.In Clinton County this September, deputies and BCI agents found outdoor grows but couldn't link any of them to a particular suspect.Lieutenant Brian Edwards said, "95 percent of the time, the actual landowners, especially in the cornfields, have no knowledge its on their property. People just trespass and plant it.
"Clinton County farmer Steve Murphy leases hundreds of acres and said it's not uncommon to stumble upon those grows during harvest seasons. He said he doesn't like anyone "tromping around" his property.The eradication operations will continue next summer. In the meantime, state agents are investigating evidence left at many of the grows. They are extracting DNA and lifting fingerprints from those sites in hopes of connecting the worker bees to their ringleaders.
http://www.wlwt.com/r/
Eleven arrested in marijuana-growing operation linked to Mexican cartel
A Columbus man portrayed as the ringleader and 10 Mexican nationals have been arrested and charged with cultivating two sizable plots of marijuana that could be linked to drug cartels south of the Rio Grande.
The arrests, involving marijuana-growing operations in Muskingum and Logan counties, were announced this afternoon by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and other state, local and federal authorities.
More than two dozen law enforcement officers lay in wait yesterday and then descended on the operation near Adams Mills in Muskingum County, chasing and ultimately arresting 10 workers tending to the crop, officials said.
The man whom authorities say led the pot ring, Hugo Ayala, 40, was arrested by federal agents and Columbus police at his apartment on Clybourne Road on the North Side. Ayala is a legal U.S. resident. (Note: many of these Mexican growers have been found with USA issued Green Cards....and congress wants to give more of them out!)
A total of 2,500 marijuana plants were seized near the Muskingum River and from a plot near Zanesfield in Logan County. The plants carried a street value of about $5 million, officials said.
The investigation began four months ago when hunters stumbled across the-then young marijuana plants and a campsite in Logan County, said Sheriff Andrew Smith.
Ayala is believed to have shuttled his work crews from Columbus to their duties in the marijuana fields both east and northwest of the city, authorities said.
He and the others appeared in U.S. District Court in Dayton today and will have detention hearings on Thursday. The conspiracy to cultivate marijuana charges they face carry five to 40 years in prison.
Authorities said yesterday's arrests were unusual. While officials have located and large marijuana-growing operations in recent years, they seldom have made arrests of those cultivating the crops.
The marijuana picked yesterday likely was destined to be sold in Ohio, with profits perhaps returning to Mexican drug cartels, authorities said.
About 60,000 marijuana plants have been seized in Ohio this year, well above the 48,000 eradicated last year.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/
We come in, take pictures - and then we get chopping'
Story Published: Sep 29, 2010 at 8:16 PM PDT
Weed Wars: California marijuana vote closely watched south of the border
Posted at 09:13 AM on Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2010
Some of the most anxious observers of California's November vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use are ineligible to vote because they are located south of the border in Mexico.
Prop 19 proponents argue that the most nervous observers are the Mexican drug cartels, whose operations could be undercut by legal marijuana in the Golden State.
But leading political intellectuals in Mexico are also wondering whether the California vote will open the door to seriously considering legalizing marijuana in Mexico.
Tim Johnson, the Mexico City Bureau Chief for McClatchy Newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, recently wrote that Proposition 19 is a huge topic of interest in the country ravaged by drug violence.
His recent report described Prop 19 as a bellwether in Mexico as to whether legalizing pot may be seen as an answer to the country's deadly scourge - or perhaps a political affront to the United States.
In a recent commentary in The Washington Post, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge G. Castañeda and historian and magazine publisher Héctor Aguilar Camín wrote that the California vote represents "almost the whole enchilada" for how Mexico should shape future policy on marijuana.
"We have believed for some time that Mexico should legalize marijuana and perhaps other drugs," they wrote. "But until now, most discussion of this possibility has foundered because our country's drug problem and the U.S. drug problem are so inextricably linked...As a result, the debate over legalization has inevitably gotten hung up over whether Mexico should wait until the United States is willing and able to do the same."
TOO MANY to list!
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Marijuana 'Megafarms' Busted in Ohio; Ties to Mexican Drug Cartels ...
AOL News - Sep 22, 2010Authorities believe the pot plantations could have ties to Mexican drug cartels, which have been planting crops in the US in recent years. ... SOMMER weeds out marijuana grow sites
Curry County Reporter - Matthew Smith - 1 day agoThe Southern Oregon Multi-Agency Marijuana Eradication and Reclamation team, ... sites that are part of a nationwide network run by Mexican drug cartels. ...Lawmen locate pot harvesting from the air
Tulsa World - Nicole Marshall - 6 days agoTulsa police broke up a large indoor marijuana-growing operation Sept. ... Most noteworthy is a new trend in the last two years of Mexican cartels bringing ...Officials: Pot Busts Rise With Harvest - KOCO Oklahoma City
Busts rise as marijuana harvest begins in Okla. - Alva Review-Courier
Up To 40K Pot Plants Seized In Alpine
KCRA Sacramento - Sep 17, 2010That person is believed to be connected with Mexican cartel marijuana growers, officials said. More than 7000 plants were seized during that operation. ...Pot plants worth $30 million uncovered in CA - San Francisco Chronicle
Alpine uncovers $30 million in pot plants - Nevada Appeal
Pot plants worth $30 million uncovered in CA - KGET 17Authorities: Cartels working in Dona Ana County
Silver City Sun News - 2 days agoLAS CRUCES - Authorities confirmed Wednesday that two Mexican drug cartels have made their way into southern Doña Ana County. An ongoing investigation into ...6:40am -- Authorities Confirm Cartel Presence in Dona Ana County - ABQ JournalU.S. Border Patrol Seizes More Marijuana
Tucson Citizen - 1 day agoThe vehicle, marijuana and driver were transported to Nogales Station for ... is filed under border issues, drug smuggling, mexican drug cartels, politics. ...Governor Schwarzenegger Signs Bill to Reduce Marijuana Penalties ...
Salem-News.Com - Bonnie King - 1 day agoYou said the workforce will be stoned if we legalized marijuana and thus, ..... and by doing so take away the "king crop" from the Mexican drug cartels. ...Pot, Prop. 19 and Mexico
Seattle Times - Nick Miroff - William Booth - Sep 12, 2010Much of the Mexican marijuana that reaches US consumers today is a ... and the homegrown trend already has cut into the earnings of Mexican cartels. ...Will Legalizing Marijuana End Mexico's Drug War? Well, 'Maybe Not' - LAist (blog)
Weary of drug war, Mexico debates legalization - Seattle Times
all 42 news articles »Mexican Drug Cartel blamed for six marijuana operations in Green ...
kjrh.com - Jason Grubbs - Sep 10, 2010Agent Hale told 2NEWS his team has tied three cases from this year and another three cases from last year to the Mexican Drug Cartel. ...2 convicted of trading guns for drugs
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Sep 15, 2010... of trying to trade a machine gun and assault weapons to an undercover agent posing as a Mexican cartel operative in exchange for cocaine and marijuana. ...Two Atlanta Men Convicted in Mexican Guns-Drug Swap - GlobalAtlanta
2 Atlanta men found guilty of weapons, drug charges - Atlanta Journal Constitution
Two men convicted for trading guns for drugs - Examiner.com
Labels: drugcartels, immigration, marijuana, mexico, organizedcrime, propertyrights, publiclands
posted by TheTownCrier | 10:06 AM
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