FBI FILES COMPLAINT IN MARIJUANA BUST

NEWBURYPORT -- The nearly one-ton shipment of marijuana intercepted at
a Graf Road industrial building Friday may have been the last of 34
batches sent by a San Diego-based trafficker, according to a Federal
Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint.

The complaint, meant to establish probable cause in the case against
the three men charged with possession of marijuana with intent to
distribute and conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to
distribute, outlines the FBI investigation that tracked the shipment
to Newburyport. The city was one stop in a countrywide network of pot
trafficking, according to the complaint.

On Friday, as a result of the investigation and surveillance that
began Thursday, federal agents seized cardboard boxes filled with
marijuana weighing an estimated 1,500 to 1,800 pounds and arrested
[redacted] where he resides, as well as his brother, [redacted]

Once taken to the Newburyport police station and read his rights, [redacted]
told FBI agents, "You've got my weed, you've got my
money, what else do you want?" according to the criminal complaint.

The three men were arraigned Friday at the Moakley Federal Courthouse
in Boston and held in the custody of federal marshals. They are due
back in court Wednesday morning. If convicted, they could face between
five and 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine.

According to the affidavit, which was written by an FBI special agent,
key information in the arrests came from [redacted] , a drug
trafficker from Kentucky arrested in August. [redacted] had previously
eluded authorities by undergoing plastic surgery and taking the
identity of a mentally disabled man named [redacted] Using statements
from [redacted] and subpoenaed shipping records, the FBI determined that
[redacted] and the men arrested in Newburyport shared a marijuana source.

[redacted] said he knew his supplier only as Jeff, who lived in San Diego,
and was supplied by another trafficker with a warehouse in Arizona.
[redacted] told the FBI he had been informed that his suppliers produced 1
million pounds of marijuana a year in Mexico, smuggling it north
through a two-mile tunnel underneath the U.S. border.

[redacted]