MARIJUANA SEIZURE RISE IN SC CORRIDOR

The Latest Illegal Crop Found: 11,000 Pot Plants Worth $22 Million Near Chester County's Airport.

CHESTER, S.C. -- Four rural S.C. counties that hug I-77 south of
Charlotte have become fields of choice for marijuana growers, law
enforcement officials say.

Operations that supply Charlotte and cities along the interstate have
been increasing in size in recent years in Chester, York, Lancaster
and Fairfield counties, state and local officials say.

The latest bust came Monday when state and Chester County authorities
arrested three men and accused them of cultivating more than 11,000
marijuana plants in a half-dozen hidden fields on someone else's
property near Chester County's airport.

The seized crop, with some plants 5 feet high, was estimated to be
worth $22 million, or $2,000 per plant. By Tuesday, the plants were
already burned and buried.

It was the third bust in the county in a year, and one of seven
large-scale seizures of marijuana plants since 2007, said Chester
County Deputy Sheriff Robert Cauthen.

The counties are popular growth sites because they're less populated,
close to the interstate and within 50 miles of Charlotte, which is
filled with potential customers, say officials with the S.C. Law
Enforcement Division.

"It's easy-in, easy-out and good soil. It's very good farmland," said
Jennifer Timmons, a SLED spokeswoman. "Whether you're growing corn or
marijuana, you're going to have a good yield."

Last year, local and state authorities seized more than 30,400 pot
plants in all of South Carolina. About 60 to 70 percent were found in
Chester, York, Lancaster and Fairfield counties, estimated Lt. Max
Dorsey of SLED. More detailed state statistics weren't available Tuesday.

A Chester County raid in August netted 11,000 plants.

Capt. Chuck Grant, who commands the narcotics division of the Chester
County sheriff's office, said larger fields and more sophisticated
operations with irrigation systems and onsite labor have sprung up in
the area over the past several years.

Grant, who has worked in narcotics enforcement in York and Chester
counties for 15 years, said the fields are more visible than in the
past.

He believes the increase is attributable to drug organizations in
Mexico and other parts of Latin America that might be financing the
operations.

He said fields uncovered recently had tell-tale signs of outside
financing, including the increased size of the crops and evidence of
camps set up so workers could live around-the-clock onsite and tend to
the crops when the plants were young. All of that takes resources, he
said.

"They're provided the necessities by someone," he said. "It's always
on someone else's property."

The three men arrested Monday are Latino and speak only Spanish,
officials said.

The half-dozen fields at the center of Monday's arrests were first
discovered last week when a state law enforcement helicopter spotted
them from the air.

Authorities set up a command base at a nearby public lake access and
waited for suspects to appear. The fields had some irrigation ditches
and buckets left onsite to carry water for the plants from a nearby
creek, Grant said.

After several days of staking out the area, law enforcement spotted a
group of six men near the fields on Monday. More than a hundred agents
from various local, state and federal departments set up a perimeter.

Some agents flushed them out of the woods. Two of the men were
arrested immediately and three escaped. One was picked up later that
night.

The men taken into custody were identified as Victor Villa, Ulver
Hernandez and Arnulfo Maulcon. They are estimated to be from 25 to 40
years old, officials said. One said through an interpreter that he has
lived in Charlotte at various addresses.

Authorities believe the men lived in Charlotte and traveled back and
forth tending to the crop. An Observer records search could find no
N.C. criminal record for the three suspects, and SLED said it would
need to run fingerprints to try to confirm identities and to see
whether the three have S.C. criminal records.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not immediately provide
details of any criminal or immigration record for the three.

News of marijuana fields is becoming commonplace in Chester County,
said Crystal Norton, a worker at City Barber in downtown Chester.

She said she lives across the street from where the bust took place,
and the search for those who escaped arrest continued into the next
morning. She said she saw law enforcement stop and search vehicles as
they looked for suspects.

Four county sheriff's offices - Chester, Fairfield, Lancaster and York
- - joined forces in the raid with at least 14 other agencies, including
the DEA, the Rock Hill Police Department and state wildlife officials.