San Benito County

STATE'S WAR ON POT GETTING MORE VIOLENT

Drug Agents Trying To Keep Pace With Mexican Cartels

San Benito County -- As the sun rose over the rugged hills in this remote
and wild land, 10 drug agents clad like commandos in camouflage and green
face paint and clutching AR-15 assault rifles crept cautiously through
thick brush up the mountain where an outlaw marijuana farm was hidden.

The lawmen say the wariness is warranted: The race is on between Mexican
drug cartels and narcotics agents to see who will harvest California's
multibillion-dollar pot crop before the season peaks at September's end.

Given the high stakes, the drug lords have hired armed pot guards,
including violent street gang veterans. Authorities say they are
increasingly willing to shoot at any intruders, including narcotics agents
who only a month into the state Department of Justice's annual Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting -- or CAMP -- have seized a record 742,684
plants with an estimated street value topping $2.6 billion. The haul
shattered last year's total season high by 20 percent with a month
remaining in this year's pot-eradication campaign.

The marijuana war casualties aren't just financial.

Three weeks ago, a grower was shot dead and a state Fish and Game warden
was wounded when a gunfight erupted during a raid on a sprawling,
22,000-plant spread in the hills above Los Gatos. It was the fourth suspect
to die during marijuana raid shootouts in the past three years and the
first time an officer has been shot in the campaign's 22-year history.

"This year we got the word they would be confrontational, prepared to take
on the cops," said San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill, a 29-year veteran
of the weed eradication battles. "Sure as hell, two weeks later Santa Clara
County (deputies and state wardens) go to take out that garden and those
guys come out 'high profile,' shooting."

The drug lords who bankroll the illegal plantations on public and private
lands use armed growers to prevent other crooks -- "patch pirates" -- from
ripping off their crop.

"I can see why you'd want to be pointing your guns at people coming to rip
you off, but not taking on the police. It's not good for longevity," Hill said.

The illegal growers exploiting state and federal parklands also pose a
threat to Bay Area residents out hiking and mountain biking, fishing and
bird-watching. While the growers prefer remote areas, recent pot farm busts
have included some of the Bay Area's most popular playgrounds: Castle Rock
State Park and Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

More than a few hikers and fishermen have reported being threatened by
gun-toting men in camo-pants and shirts, trying to run them off,
authorities said.

"It scares the hell out of people," said Bob Cooke, special agent in charge
for the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in San Jose.

The super-size pot "gardens" underscore the growing sophistication and
diversification of international drug cartels.

"The same people who bring you coke, methamphetamine and heroin are
responsible for these groves," said BNA Special Agent Richard Camps,
commander of a CAMP task force of local, state and federal agents targeting
growers from San Mateo County to Monterey.

Authorities now suspect that cartels are using airplane drops to supply
mountainous plantations with heavy reels of drip irrigation lines, concrete
sacks to line reservoirs and bags of fertilizer and pesticides. Agents have
also found Mexican illegal immigrants who are required to repay the
"coyotes" who guided them into the United States with forced labor on pot
farms.

State authorities are also concerned about the environmental destruction
the growers wreak by dumping pesticides and chemical fertilizers near
creeks and lakes, where they can endanger coastal steelhead and salmon runs
and trout, said State Fish and Game Warden Jeremy Bonesio, who was among
the 30 federal, state and local officers participating in the Thursday raid
50 miles south of Hollister. The growers also dam and divert creeks and
leave piles of garbage.

"They do a lot of damage," Bonesio said.

The raids are carefully planned and orchestrated to protect agents, who are
trained not only to protect themselves from machine gun-wielding pot
farmers, but also mountain lions, rattlesnakes and treacherous falls in the
rough terrain.

Cooke stressed that agents spend long hours covertly scouting a plantation
on the ground and pinpointing exit trails to seal off escape routes.

A local deputy scouring the area from a CAMP helicopter weeks earlier
spotted the hilltop marijuana grove, despite the growers' efforts to
conceal the telltale lush green plants under the scrub oak and pine canopy.
Local ranchers also reported seeing strangers furtively entering and
leaving the area with backpacks.

The morning raid began with a 10-agent strike team hiking up the mountain
at first light.

Before they could see the plants, Camps said, the pungent smell of
marijuana "was the first thing to hit us."

"We followed the smell," he said until they suddenly arrived amid a forest
of 9,025 plants, many 15 feet tall. The seizure's street value was
conservatively estimated at $36 million -- but could be double that given
the huge plants.

"It's like a marijuana jungle," said Camps, noting that growers usually
keep crop plants close to the ground to avoid detection. "I haven't seen a
grove this tall since years ago in Mendocino."

The farm had an amazingly sophisticated irrigation system, fed by endless,
snaking black hoses apparently tapping into a spring and a water-filled
ditch lined with plastic and concealed under cut tree branches.

No one was found at the farm, where remnants of older encampments led
agents to believe the site has been used for several years. But the day
before the raid, state agents arrested three men leaving a nearby trailhead
and the driver picking them up in a car rented in Southern California,
Cooke said. In the sedan they found a 9mm Glock handgun reported stolen
from a Las Vegas police officer.

The men were charged Thursday with cultivation of marijuana and possession
for sale based on their interviews with agents and unspecified evidence
found at the farm campsites, Cooke said. The four are also charged with the
gun theft and weapon violations.

"Without local residents' cooperation those arrests probably would not have
occurred," Cooke said, stressing that such help is critical to combatting
organized crime.

Sheriff Hill said the successful raid, and one nearby Wednesday that netted
7,761 plants, underscores his aggressive strategy of going beyond hitting
growers in their wallets.

"Anyone can go in and pick up weed. I want to go in there, take these
growers down and send them to jail," he said.