FruityBud
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Small Monday raid brings county's total marijuana seizures this year to about 100,000 plants and counting.
They'd cleared a patch of woods beyond a rugged field off a dirt road just west of this small community.
From the looks of what was left behind, there were probably two of them living next to the crop they tended.
Their crop -- 2,300 marijuana plants -- was a relatively small find, according to drug agents who needed just two hours to hack out the plants Monday morning.
But the seizures add up. So far, this season about 100,000 marijuana plants have been discovered in Yakima County.
The number of seizures has grown in recent years as competing Mexican drug cartels increasingly move marijuana operations closer to their U.S. customers and farther from a tightening border, officials say.
Officials add Yakima is the state's top county for marijuana production, boosting Washington's total harvest to the No. 2 national position behind only California. What's been seized here so far this year could be worth as much as $250 million or more.
Monday's raid -- conducted with television and newspaper reporters in attendance -- offers a glimpse into cartels' presence in the region, which some fear will lead to the kind of violence that is escalating along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nobody was arrested in the raid, although authorities from a drug eradication team of local, state and federal agents arrested six men last week who were tending crops in the Satus Pass region.
At the deserted Harrah site, officers found the usual handguns and pellet guns. But "I'm not aware of any violence up here yet although the border has gotten tighter," said Washington State Patrol Lt. Rich Wiley, who heads the state's multi-agency marijuana eradication team.
Those tending the crops aren't ususally high-level cartel members, said State Patrol Sgt. Al Escalera, who leads the county's anti-drug Lead Task Force.
The job of planting, watering, fertilizing and hand-picking the illegal crop often goes to Mexican farmers who have harvested marijuana or legal crops in similarly uneven terrain in Michoacán, Wiley said.
The similarities are particularly striking to Yakima's police chief, who called it "no coincidence we do have a large population of citizens in this county from Michoacán."
In an earlier interview, Chief Sam Granato said he is worried about an increased presence of Mexican drug cartel members -- particularly from the La Familia Cartel out of Michoacán -- as the Mexican government increases pressure there.
"What do you think is going to happen when they do a crackdown? You think they are going to look for places to hide, especially if they have family connections up here?" Granato said. "We have obviously an agriculture-based economy here, not much different than what is in Michoacán."
Escalera said the cartels have a presence in Yakima but would not provide additional details.
Cartels pay tenders as little $250 per week, Wiley said. But they're sometimes forced into the work to repay the fee for getting smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, he added.
"It's basically slave labor ... We'll find guys up here who have no idea where they are. They're totally lost, were dropped off and told they'd spend the summer here," Wiley said Monday as dozens of officers cut away the 10-foot plants that surrounded him. On average, a plant can produce about a pound of quality pot worth about $2,500 on the street, Wiley said.
That would mean authorites have seized $250 million worth of marijuana in Yakima County so far this year.
In Harrah, tenders had built a small den out of sticks and a tarp to cook and store a camping stove and food supplies -- fresh vegetables, sweet bread, salsa, chocolate, bottled water and instant coffee.
Officers discovered an interesting shrine to Jesús Malverde -- a so-called "narco-saint" when they first busted into the abandoned Harrah site last week, Wiley said. They had left the actual eradication work for Monday.
As much as 70 percent of the marijuana produced in the area is exported, often to the East Coast where it can sell for as much as $6,000 per pound, Wiley said. He estimated that the state's eradication team discovers 25 percent to 50 percent of the illegal grows.
"They'll come back year after year until they get discovered by law enforcement," he said.
hxxp://shuurl.com/E6191
They'd cleared a patch of woods beyond a rugged field off a dirt road just west of this small community.
From the looks of what was left behind, there were probably two of them living next to the crop they tended.
Their crop -- 2,300 marijuana plants -- was a relatively small find, according to drug agents who needed just two hours to hack out the plants Monday morning.
But the seizures add up. So far, this season about 100,000 marijuana plants have been discovered in Yakima County.
The number of seizures has grown in recent years as competing Mexican drug cartels increasingly move marijuana operations closer to their U.S. customers and farther from a tightening border, officials say.
Officials add Yakima is the state's top county for marijuana production, boosting Washington's total harvest to the No. 2 national position behind only California. What's been seized here so far this year could be worth as much as $250 million or more.
Monday's raid -- conducted with television and newspaper reporters in attendance -- offers a glimpse into cartels' presence in the region, which some fear will lead to the kind of violence that is escalating along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nobody was arrested in the raid, although authorities from a drug eradication team of local, state and federal agents arrested six men last week who were tending crops in the Satus Pass region.
At the deserted Harrah site, officers found the usual handguns and pellet guns. But "I'm not aware of any violence up here yet although the border has gotten tighter," said Washington State Patrol Lt. Rich Wiley, who heads the state's multi-agency marijuana eradication team.
Those tending the crops aren't ususally high-level cartel members, said State Patrol Sgt. Al Escalera, who leads the county's anti-drug Lead Task Force.
The job of planting, watering, fertilizing and hand-picking the illegal crop often goes to Mexican farmers who have harvested marijuana or legal crops in similarly uneven terrain in Michoacán, Wiley said.
The similarities are particularly striking to Yakima's police chief, who called it "no coincidence we do have a large population of citizens in this county from Michoacán."
In an earlier interview, Chief Sam Granato said he is worried about an increased presence of Mexican drug cartel members -- particularly from the La Familia Cartel out of Michoacán -- as the Mexican government increases pressure there.
"What do you think is going to happen when they do a crackdown? You think they are going to look for places to hide, especially if they have family connections up here?" Granato said. "We have obviously an agriculture-based economy here, not much different than what is in Michoacán."
Escalera said the cartels have a presence in Yakima but would not provide additional details.
Cartels pay tenders as little $250 per week, Wiley said. But they're sometimes forced into the work to repay the fee for getting smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, he added.
"It's basically slave labor ... We'll find guys up here who have no idea where they are. They're totally lost, were dropped off and told they'd spend the summer here," Wiley said Monday as dozens of officers cut away the 10-foot plants that surrounded him. On average, a plant can produce about a pound of quality pot worth about $2,500 on the street, Wiley said.
That would mean authorites have seized $250 million worth of marijuana in Yakima County so far this year.
In Harrah, tenders had built a small den out of sticks and a tarp to cook and store a camping stove and food supplies -- fresh vegetables, sweet bread, salsa, chocolate, bottled water and instant coffee.
Officers discovered an interesting shrine to Jesús Malverde -- a so-called "narco-saint" when they first busted into the abandoned Harrah site last week, Wiley said. They had left the actual eradication work for Monday.
As much as 70 percent of the marijuana produced in the area is exported, often to the East Coast where it can sell for as much as $6,000 per pound, Wiley said. He estimated that the state's eradication team discovers 25 percent to 50 percent of the illegal grows.
"They'll come back year after year until they get discovered by law enforcement," he said.
hxxp://shuurl.com/E6191
