IN-HOME DRUG BUST IS RECORD

TAMPA - They set up shop in luxury homes and gated communities,
filling bedrooms with fertilizer, high-tech lighting and automated
irrigation systems. In the privacy of rented residences, drug
traffickers prepared to make millions.

Then deputies got wind of it. On Thursday, the Hillsborough County
Sheriff's Office announced its largest marijuana bust in history,
arresting 70 people and seizing 1.5 tons of marijuana over the course
of a six-month sting. An estimated $13-million in drugs was taken off
the street, Sheriff David Gee said.

Gee promised additional arrests of at least nine people.

"This is organized crime," he said. "They're doing it in neighborhoods
right here in suburbia, and they're hiding in plain sight."

That wasn't always the case. In recent years, authorities in
HillsA-borough have raided perhaps a half-dozen grow houses annually,
deputies said. Yet since February, detectives have found no fewer than
62 area homes that had been converted into drug factories.

Some of the Hillsborough grow houses worked in concert with others,
but in general, the operations were run independently.

U.S. Attorney Robert E. O'Neill said he has seen grow houses
proliferate elsewhere in Florida, too. They were uncovered last year
in 45 of Florida's 67 counties, and the nearly 75,000 plants seized
were twice the number found the year before, according to the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement.

On Wednesday, Hernando authorities arrested two people after deputies
found 97 marijuana plants growing in a garage behind a tall fence.

"If you talk to all the different sheriffs, this is one of the prime
drug movements going on right now," said O'Neill, who promised some of
those arrested will face federal charges. Suspects will also face
harsher penalties in state courts because of laws enacted in June to
stem indoor growing.

Nationally, too, drug traffickers have moved operations indoors to
avoid detection from law enforcement and make more money by producing
drugs with higher potencies, said Charles F. Miller, a spokesman for
the Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center.

On Thursday, Gee and his deputies turned a sheriff's conference room
into an arboretum, replete with scores of marijuana plants, drug
paraphernalia and even a full-scale replica of a typical room inside a
grow house.

"You almost have to be an electrician to figure this out," said
Detective Ronnie Cooper. "It's an extremely sophisticated operation."

In addition to more than 5,800 marijuana plants, deputies said, the
raids netted $1.6-million in growing equipment, including industrial
duct work, automated irrigation systems and 1,000-watt light fixtures
that Cooper said use as much power apiece as the average family home.

In some of the houses, deputies said they found plants as large as 7
or 8 feet tall. Black mold often covered walls and ceilings, the
result of the high humidity necessary for growing. Investigators had
to wear masks to enter.

In many cases, suspects dabbled as amateur electricians and tapped
into power lines to avoid paying what would be four-figure electrical
bills. The Sheriff's Office estimated the amount of power theft from
the grow houses at as much as $1-million this year alone.

Deputies said growers find the fetid mold and risk of electrocution a
small price to pay considering the potential profit. One house raided
recently had produced $800,000 worth of marijuana, said J.D. Callaway,
a sheriff's spokesman.

Gee would not provide details on how detectives uncovered them, but
grow houses were found all over the county, from Carrollwood to
Brandon, Town 'N Country to Riverview. Few of the homes had anyone
living in them, but eight vehicles, 13 guns and $42,000 in cash were
seized.

Some homes were worth half a million and some were in gated
communities. Few looked like anything other than a typical suburban
residence.

"It could be in any neighborhood. It's going on everywhere," Gee said.
"Most of these communities we went into didn't have any idea this was
going on."