POT RAID LEADS TO ARREST OF SR MAN

Authorities Believe Suspect Linked With Mexican Drug Cartel

UKIAH - Evidence seized during a major marijuana raid in northern
Mendocino County has led to the arrest of a Santa Rosa man suspected
of having ties to a Mexican drug cartel.

Isaac Maldonado, 26, is in custody in Mendocino County Jail, facing
charges of cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale.

Maldonado was tracked down after local, state and federal agents last
week raided a series of gardens in the remote Red Mountain Creek area
near Piercy.

Sgt. Rusty Noe of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office marijuana
team said about 7,700 maturing plants were found, along with $195,000
in cash at two different sites.

"We have reason to believe he (Maldonado) was overseeing the
operation on behalf of Mexican nationals," Noe said. He said more
arrests are expected.

Noe said several camps were found in the area, suggesting that as
many as eight individuals were living on site. Two vehicles also were found.

Noe's local pot squad, along with a team from the state Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting, assisted in the raids, which were part of
a federal Bureau of Land Management investigation into the large
marijuana growing operation.

Noe said the scale of the Mendocino marijuana operation underscores
the change in North Coast dope growing from 'mom-and-pop' operations
of two decades ago to large commercial ventures that increasingly are
being linked to drug cartels south of the border.

In July, authorities found two sophisticated drug operations in the
Austin Creek State Recreation Area of Sonoma County. One garden
yielded 23,650 plants. About 21,000 plants were found in a second
garden nearby.

Statewide, marijuana seizures this year are breaking records, with
another month to go before harvest of the illicit weed winds down.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Tuesday announced that state
agents have yanked more than a million pot plants from growers'
gardens, nearly 400,000 more than in 2004.

Lockyer said the uprooted marijuana would have been worth $4 billion
if it had been sold on the streets.

Pot seizures in Sonoma and Mendocino already have surpassed 100,000
plants each. Nearly 90,000 plants have been found so far in Napa
County. Together, the total in the three neighboring counties
represents about 30 percent of the statewide production.