Third Massive Marijuana Takedown in Three Days

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By Chelsea Kopta

Summary

Drug teams raided four more marijuana grows Thursday, this time in Walla Walla County. Action News takes you inside the grow and shows you the dangerous evidence they found left behind.

Story Published: Jul 31, 2008 at 7:15 PM PST

PRESCOTT -- Drug dealers can get up to $2,400 a pound for pot. So when drug teams are roping dope, time is money.

Law enforcement used choppers, trucks, ATV's and dogs to harvest four hidden harvests along the Touchet River in Prescott, off of Highway 124.

The team, including the DEA, State Patrol, National Guard, local police and Sheriff's Offices from two counties, pulled more than 7,200 plants.

That brings their total to well over 50,000 plants pulled in a matter of days, and millions more dollars of weed off the streets.

"Marijuana is obviously one of larger cash crops," Sargent Gary Bolster with the Walla Walla Sheriff's Office said. "In fact, there's probably a lot more money there than other drugs."

For those who didn't catch a ride with the DEA chopper, teams trudged their way through bushes and across the river to get to the grow.

"Obviously, we have a lot of people consuming marijuana," Bolster said. "It's locally grown, so it's usually pretty good marijuana and it should stay in the northwest."

But before deputies could pull one plant in this grow, the group had to back off. Someone spotted a camp. And those workers who camp are almost always armed. So the group brought in dogs with a chopper to track for any trail.

"We're starting to see camps more and more in grows which is an indication they're probably financed by other people," Bolster said.

And it was no different with this grow. Teams found bullets for a 22. long rifle and a 9mm.

In the last couple years, several officers around the country were shot walking into grows.

The teams didn't find anyone but the evidence left behind from the camp was a start.

"So everything else you went through pretty much then," Walla Walla Police officer Chris Buttice said while going through the camp evidence.

The jars and baggies found from the camp could hold the clue to a capture. The drug teams will fingerprint the trash. But during an initial scan, there was no sign of receipts and the medicine labels were ripped off.

"No trash at all out there. it's clean as a whistle," said one of the troopers.

"We've had arrests in the past but It's pretty hard to prosecute because you pretty much have to find them in the grow to prove that it was there grow," Bolster said.

The teams flew other parts of the county Thursday and they'll be back out if they find more.