illegal cannabis cultivation discovered in Oregon

A huge illegal marijuana plantation was discovered in southern Oregon last week, which local authorities have described as an unprecedented bankruptcy.

The operation was found last Wednesday near the town of Klamath Falls, Oregon, where MPs reportedly came across a “27,000 square foot potato shed” south of town.

The potato shed was “filled with marijuana at various stages of processing, according to the Herald and News: drying in huge strands that stretched from roof to floor, buds trimmed and stuffed into 40-pound sacks, hundreds of those sacks stacked against a wall and.” Years of discarded marijuana waste in piles ready for disposal. “

Authorities believe the value of the marijuana discovered in the shed is likely to eclipse the street value of $ 100 million.

The newspaper noted that Klamath County, Oregon Sheriff, Chris Klaber, said, “He has never seen anything like it in 30 years of policing” and that the operation “would not have been found if a single car had not been thrown” . raised so much dust that a neighbor took it for a plume of smoke. “

Firefighters and MPs from Klamath County responded to a phone call Wednesday about “possible smoke in the area,” the Herald and the News reported, adding that MPs “noticed that the back of a nearby building was open and it was clearly marijuana inside “and” There was more of it than any of them had ever seen before. “

According to the Associated Press, the Klamath County Sheriff’s office executed his search warrant on Thursday, the day after the discovery. People at the scene were interviewed but no arrests were made, the Associated Press reported, adding that the building contained cots for workers to sleep in.

The Herald and News said most of the people interviewed at the scene did not speak English, “and many soon left the scene”.

Kaber told the newspaper that the “raid on the potato shed led detectives to two other growers attached to the processing facility, where they found more marijuana and processing equipment,” and that all three locations were “linked by land ownership, lease”. Agreements and by leasing heavy machinery to multiple locations under a single name. “

“I had to completely readjust my sense of where we stand in the fight against illegal marijuana production in Klamath,” said Klaber, as quoted by the Herald and News. “I didn’t think we were that far behind.”

“This is really – and I’ve said it before – organized criminal activity,” Kaber continued. “This is definitely what Oregon’s definition of organized crime is.”

It is the second major bankruptcy of a marijuana grower in southern Oregon in recent months.

In late August, the Josephine County, Oregon Sheriff’s Department raided a cannabis ranch that was suspected of being a center for various illegal activities, including human trafficking.

Jefferson Public Radio reported at the time that the raid “was part of a larger investigation that began with the death of a man on another illegal marijuana farm.”

About 250 police officers took part in the raid on the 1,300-acre property, which resulted in the confiscation of US $ 140,000 in cash. Authorities also destroyed more than 70,000 pounds of marijuana, 6,000 pounds of processed weed and nearly 400 greenhouses.

Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel believed the operation had the hallmarks of a cartel.

“We heard that your family will be harmed if you don’t come with us,” Daniel said at the time. “And then they are transported to the site. As far as we know, these workers aren’t paid until the end of the year when the delivery starts and the money arrives. There is no weekly payroll here. “