Dawn Raid Reaps Large Haul of Marijuana

Working with machetes along a steep canyon wall, two dozen narcotics officers Monday uprooted a huge back country marijuana plantation believed to have been planted by drug dealers linked to Mexican cocaine and heroin drug cartels.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies, with the help of U.S. Forest Service police and FBI agents, uprooted about 6,400 plants in a remote section of the Sespe National Wilderness Area.

The plantation, with an intricate irrigation system, is believed to have been cultivated by the same people growing more than 3,800 plants at a nearby pot field found by deputies more than a week ago, said Capt. Craig Husbands, who heads the narcotics unit for the Sheriff’s Department.

Together, the seizures were the largest confiscation of pot plants in the county’s history.

“This was a sophisticated operation, to grow top-quality marijuana,” Husbands said.

The high-grade plants were hidden amid bushes and under camouflaged tarps along a remote, mile-long canyon about six miles from California 33 above Derry Dale Creek, 30 miles north of Ojai.

“These guys spared no expense,” Husbands said. “They had thousands of yards of irrigation pipe, automatic timers, fertilizing devices. We have evidence that they were using helicopter drops to get equipment in.”

The marijuana growers are believed to be connected to Mexican cocaine and heroin drug cartels, Husbands said.

“We’ve made that connection already,” he said.

Although no arrests were made, Husbands said the interagency drug task force has assembled an impressive amount of physical evidence and is close to picking up some of the suspected growers.

The first field of plants was spotted by back-country hikers in early July, and it was raided by narcotics officers two weeks ago.

In that raid, the officers spotted two men believed to be the plantation caretakers, but the men disappeared into the brush, said Sgt. Arnie Aviles, a narcotics officer with the Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies also found detailed records that showed when the plants were put into the ground and how often they were watered, Aviles said. There was also evidence of a makeshift shelter, possibly used by the caretakers.

The plot uprooted Monday was spotted when officers scouted the area around the first plot, officials said.

The plants, 3 to 5 feet tall, were not yet at full maturity. They can reach a height of more than 15 feet.

To reach the rugged canyon, members of the team--armed and dressed in camouflage--were shuttled in by helicopter at dawn Monday and dropped onto a ridge above the canyon.

Before heading out, the team members were warned about booby traps and rattlesnakes. They were also told to keep an eye out for evidence.

In the last few years, Ventura County, with its vast remote parklands has become one of California’s biggest pot-producing counties.

Marijuana cultivation is at an all-time high in the county, according to Husbands, who said Ventura County was the fourth largest producer of the drug behind such notable pot-growing regions as Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte counties.

Despite the increase, Ventura County marijuana growing is nowhere near that of those Northern California counties. In Humboldt and Mendocino counties last year, a state-run task forced seized more than 26,000 plants in each of those counties, officials said.

Last year, the Sheriff’s Department raided a 6,000-plant plantation above Lake Casitas, that at the time was the largest marijuana field ever uncovered in the county.

The Sheriff’s Department estimated that the street value for one pound of high-grade marijuana to be about $4,000. Officials would not go into detail about how they arrived at that figure, but they estimated the latest haul of 6,400 plants was worth $25 million on the street.