5,000 POT PLANTS FOUND IN HARNETT

Hired Pilot Led Police To Wooded Camp

BROADWAY - Since a drug-spotting plane from the state Highway Patrol
found 35,000 marijuana plants growing in the Harnett County woods last
month, Sheriff Larry Rollins has been wondering: How much more is out
there? At least another 5,000 plants, it turned out, found by a
commercial pilot Rollins hired to fly over the county in search of the
clandestine crop. The pilot found the operation in a remote, heavily
forested area near the community of Broadway. Investigators raided the
site Monday after watching it for a week.

"If they keep planting it, we're going to find it," Rollins said,
standing in front of a plot of bright green marijuana plants 7 feet
tall. The site raided Monday was about three miles from the plots
found last month, he said.

No arrests have been made in either case, though the sheriff has
offered a reward of $5,000 for information that leads to the growers,
who he suspects came from outside the area after scouting for land
where they could work undetected.

Rollins said it appeared six to eight people had been living in the
woods in nylon tents and tending at least 11 separate plots on about 5
acres. They had a kitchen area under the trees with a makeshift
propane stove for cooking and a stash of food that included tortillas,
beans, instant coffee and dozens of eggs stacked in cardboard trays on
the ground in the July heat. A chair fashioned from cut saplings with
a seat of twine sat near the stove. Rainwater stood in a stock pot and
puddled in a griddle, indicating it had been days since anyone had
been there. Investigators think those tending the site realized
immediately they had been discovered, and left without returning.
Where they had been doing laundry in shallow Daniels Creek, socks,
shirts and pants still hung over tree limbs to dry. Workers had
cleared sections of the forest by hand, cutting down young undergrowth
in what has been managed loosely for pine timber. Rollins said
officers had no reason to think that either of the landowners on whose
property the plants were growing knew of the operation. Each plot, it
appeared, was being individually tended, with different workers using
different techniques. Some of the plants were taller and more robust
than others. Some were staked, and some were supported by strings.
Some were enclosed by low stockade fences made of green sticks that
had been sharpened to a point and put into the ground, presumably to
keep out deer or other wildlife.

Members of the N.C. National Guard's anti-drug task force helped with
the raid, along with the State Bureau of Investigation. The SBI says
that a mature marijuana plant will yield about a pound of dried leaves
with a street value of $2,400.