AGENTS SEIZE 1,000 HIGH-GRADE PLANTS, MAKE 4 ARRESTS

Drug agents filled a U-Haul van with more than 1,000 marijuana plants,
$20,000 in specialized lighting and watering equipment, and 41/2 pounds of
ready-to-sell drugs seized Wednesday from a facility in south Modesto.

The marijuana greenhouse had been disguised as a welding shop.

The plants, at maturity, could have produced at least $5 million worth of
packaged marijuana, said Art Longoria, an agent with the state Bureau of
Narcotics Enforcement.

Agents began investigating a statewide money-laundering scheme six months
ago and it led them to Modesto, said Sgt. Doug Leo of the Stanislaus Drug
Enforcement Agency.

Four people were arrested Wednesday and two suspects remain at large, Leo
said. One of the suspects sold 2.2 pounds of cocaine and a pound of
marijuana to undercover agents during the investigation, Leo said.

"Through surveillance, they determined the other players who were involved
and came up with the other locations," he said.

Search warrants were issued for 10 local sites -- four addresses in
Modesto, four in Turlock and one each in Ceres and Oakdale.

At 8 a.m. Wednesday, agents raided portions of a commercial building at 509
Winmoore Way, south of Hatch Road. They seized 1,042 high-grade marijuana
plants, the finished product and expensive cultivation equipment from two
neighboring rental spaces. The spaces were rented as a welding shop by one
of the suspects still at large, Leo said.

Utility bills provided one of the signs of illegal activity, Leo said.
Instead of being in the predictable $400 to $500 range each month, "one
month it was $1,000 and another it was $1,500."

The building contained four 40-by-10-foot tables holding marijuana plants.
The plants averaged about 16 inches tall and were growing under a
water-cooled halogen lighting system, Longoria said.

"They had everything you'd need for a successful indoor grow and, as you
can see, they had a successful indoor grow," Leo said.

The plants, which produce a high-quality seedless grade of marijuana known
as sinsemilla, are believed to have been imported from Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, Longoria said.

Marijuana typically has a street value of $600 to $800 per pound, he said.
Sinsemilla, however, sells for about $5,000 per pound. He estimated that
each plant would have produced at least a pound of finished marijuana. He
said the $5 million estimate is conservative, because some of the plants
would have produced more than a pound each.

It was the one of the larger indoor marijuana busts on record, Leo said.

The four people arrested on cultivation and conspiracy charges were: Bryan
Joseph Packnit, 27, and his wife, Melissa Packnit, 22, both of Turlock;
Guilherme Bettencourt DeSousa, 29, of Modesto; and Paul Alan Dompeling, 24,
of Turlock.

Wednesday afternoon, the agents went to 657 Armstrong Way in Oakdale. In
Suite B, they reported finding similar equipment and evidence of a
marijuana harvest, but no plants. The suite had been rented by Dompeling as
a dairy equipment repair shop but contained no dairy equipment, Leo said.
Tuesday, Stanislaus drug agents seized a ready-to-cook drug lab -- capable
of producing about $1.2 million of street-value methamphetamine -- in
Empire, Leo said.

Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Department crews, routinely following up on a
May 13 fire at 5200 South Ave., came upon the lab and notified the county
drug agency. The lab was inside one of two World War II-era Army barracks
at a labor camp.

Agents said they found flasks and materials used in the production of
methamphetamine.

Jose Gonzalez Aguilar, 49, who owns the property, was booked on
manufacturing and other charges.

Agents said cleanup costs at the Empire site would exceed $25,000.