PARK'S POT PROBLEM EXPLODES

Number Of Marijuana Plants Seized At Sequoia Has Soared. Officials Say
Mexican Cartels Linked To Mideast Terrorists Run The Operation.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - On the brink of the summer tourist season,
officials here are confronting an ominous reality - multimillion-dollar
stands of marijuana tended by armed growers who have menaced visitors,
killed wildlife, polluted streams and trashed pristine countryside.
Marijuana cultivation in the park has increased steadily over the last 10
years.

Since 2001, however, the number of plants seized in the state's oldest
national park has jumped eightfold.

The pot fields are financed by the Mexican drug cartels that dominate the
methamphetamine trade in the adjacent Central Valley, drug enforcement
officials say. The officials say there is evidence that the cartels, in
turn, have financial ties to Middle Eastern smugglers linked to Hezbollah
and other groups accused of terrorism. "This is the most serious and
largest assault on this park since we took control of the land in the 19th
century," said Bill Tweed, Sequoia's chief naturalist. The park was
established in 1890, one week before Yosemite was designated a national
park. "To have people out there showing up with AK-47s to greet visitors -
that's not how it's supposed to be in a national park. the premise of the
park as a special place is now in trouble.

So is the idea that you can put a 'fence of law' around a national park."
He added that the park is "not immune from the ills of society." The
dimensions of the problem began to unfold last fall when park officials
destroyed a marijuana crop valued at nearly $150 million scattered over
remote mountainsides. "Our belief is that the Mexican drug organizations
have gone heavily into marijuana operations," said Ron Gravitt, special
agent in charge at the Sacramento headquarters of the state Bureau of
Narcotics Enforcement. "The overhead is much lower than running a
methamphetamine lab. They are taking the money from meth and putting it
into expanding marijuana growing." Most of Sequoia's marijuana stands are
hidden in the steep Sierra Nevada foothills in the lightly traveled
southwestern reaches of the park. However, large plots have been discovered
a dozen miles from park headquarters. Sequoia and adjacent Kings Canyon
National Park are managed as one park encompassing 1,350 square miles.
Dennis Burnett, Park Service law enforcement administrator in Washington,
said crime has been on a "constant march" into national parks. Almost 60%
of the marijuana plants eradicated in California last year were found on
state or federal land. Drug operators target these places, Burnett said,
because they know there are too few rangers to patrol vast parks. "We
cannot keep up with the drug smuggling and smuggling of undocumented aliens
that comes across the border through parks on a daily basis.

We are aware of the connection with drug cartels.

We had a ranger shot and killed last year - that was a drug thing.

It's pretty outrageous," he said, referring to an incident in Arizona.
Hiker Held at Gunpoint In Sequoia, rangers said, visitors have encountered
pot growers.

One hiker was held at gunpoint briefly by armed growers, said Al DeLaCruz,
Sequoia's chief law enforcement officer.

In 2001, hunters in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in the
northern Sierra reported to rangers that they had been menaced by armed pot
harvesters. Park officials said rangers will be stretched thin this summer,
searching for marijuana crops and taking care of visitors during the park's
busiest season.

Tweed said that, because more rangers would be deployed to deal with the
marijuana problem, there would be fewer patrolling park roads and
campgrounds. When rangers raid pot gardens in the park, they routinely find
filthy work camps with makeshift kitchens, latrines and trash dumps in
areas designated as wilderness. Biologists report fish die-offs and water
contamination from fertilizers, pesticides and poisons used by growers.
DeLaCruz and other rangers said marijuana cultivators are killing deer and
other animals. The way to most of the pot fields is along the road to
Mineral King along the southwest border of the park, an area rangers now
archly refer to as Marijuana King. The road, a car and a half wide, is only
intermittently paved.

It is on this stretch, at this time of year, that early morning drops take
place - Mexican nationals piling out of a van or truck, strapping hundreds
of pounds of gear on their backs and heading into the hills to establish
camps and prepare the gardens for planting. Authorities say the workers are
mainly from the state of Michoacan. Eleven workers apprehended in last
year's bust are still in custody in Fresno. None has been forthcoming with
authorities. "They never talk," DeLaCruz said, adding that the workers are
paid well - as much as $4,000 a month in cash - and they are made to
understand that the welfare of their families in Mexico depends on their
silence if caught. But based on statements from informants and wiretaps,
officials at the state narcotics agency and the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration said the Mexican cartels appear to have financial ties to
Middle Eastern groups. Hezbollah Tie Alleged "We have a number of
methamphetamine cases where we've made a direct connection between the
Hezbollah and Mexican cartels," said Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the
state's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program for the Central Valley
and a former DEA agent. The DEA suspects that associates of the
Lebanon-based Hezbollah have been smuggling large amounts of
pseudoephedrine tablets in cars and trucks across the Canadian border for
sale to the drug cartels in California. Last month the DEA and Canadian
authorities arrested 65 people, including a number of Jordanian citizens,
suspected of smuggling pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient of
methamphetamine, bound for California. The state narcotics bureau has come
to suspect that the cartels are using profits from the resale of the
pseudoephedrine to bankroll the sharp increase in marijuana cultivation on
public land. The pot growers go to extraordinary measures to hide
themselves and their operations. White sneakers are spray-painted brown or
green, as are the handles of gardening tools.

If growers cut a tree, the exposed stump is painted. "You can be right up
against a garden and not know it," Ranger Dan Abbe said. The trails to the
camps are often faint and treacherous - the outposts are so hard to locate
that DeLaCruz recently had trouble finding his way back to one of the
gardens destroyed by drug agents last year. Armed with M-16s and
9-millimeter pistols, DeLaCruz and Abbe veered off a popular trail and
bushwhacked up a steep hillside. Low-slung oaks and stout mountain mahogany
formed a canopy over the chaparral-covered foothills.

The natural camouflage, along with the soil and climate, provide ideal
conditions for growing high-quality marijuana, which sells for $4,000 to
$8,000 a pound. The rangers scrambled upward and after 10 minutes arrived
at a level shelf of packed dirt. Trash was strewn everywhere - empty cans,
torn packets of noodles, a crusty leather rifle scabbard.

A soggy sleeping bag was stuffed behind a tree. Abbe said the site was a
staging area, a place for newly arrived workers to rest before pushing up
the mountain to the camps.

Animals had been here, rummaging through the shallow garbage dump. Supplies
Dropped In This was also where supplies were dropped every eight to 10 days
during the marijuana season, from planting in April to harvest in September
and October. About 2,000 feet higher and across a rushing stream, the
rangers came to the remains of one of the camps discovered during last
year's seizure of the $150-million crop. The rangers estimate that the 8
tons of marijuana found then represent only about 40% of the pot being
grown in the park. Like the staging area below, the camp was strewn with
garbage.

A blue plastic bag contained dish soap and deodorant.

A towel hung from an oak branch.

Disposable razors and toothbrushes were tucked into twine wound around tree
trunks.

Bottles of herbicide and bags of fertilizers were heaped to one side. Raw
potatoes nestled on spent coals beneath a grill suspended and tied to two
trees.

An empty bottle of brandy lay near crushed beer cans. A spatula, a lighter,
scissors, miscellaneous clothing and unpaired shoes sat in haphazard piles.
"Nice, eh?" DeLaCruz said, waving his arm to take in the scene. "Welcome to
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