State Drug Agents Arrest 5, Destroy Marijuana Farm

State narcotics agents destroyed a 4,000-plant marijuana farm Saturday in Diamond Bar that they said they discovered by accident while conducting aerial surveillance in an unrelated drug case.

The agents said they arrested five Mexican men, believed to be in this country illegally, who had been tending the farm. The men were living in several tents and lean-tos, equipped with kitchens and showers, on hilly, brushy and tree-shaded terrain just northwest of where Diamond Bar Boulevard crosses the Orange Freeway.

Agents said marijuana farms this big are unusual in Southern California.

“Up in Northern California, we see this operation constantly,” said Agent Walt Kaiser of the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. “Basically, you have a financier in the background and he hires these people for $200 a week to take care of the garden. Their job is to water the plants and run off anyone who comes by.”

He said the plants were in three distinct gardens along drainage ditches on the fringe of land that a major oil company leased to a local cattle rancher. Kaiser declined to identify the company or the rancher, saying neither was involved. The farm was hidden outside a fenced area where the rancher grazed his cattle, Kaiser said.

The agent estimated the plants would have produced marijuana worth about $1.6 million.