Where are they really? Background all looks spoopy. Weird outlines around them.
When the water started disappearing from the Hydrants in the area, which created an issue for the FD, the investigations began. Where was the water was going…
Cartel Marijuana Grows Razed In Massive LA County Raid: LASD
LANCASTER, CA — In what Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva called the department's largest-ever takedown of cartel-run illegal marijuana farms, authorities raided a series of operations in the Antelope Valley Tuesday.
"We're going to send a loud and clear message to all the cartels in the illegal operations: your days are over, here; and you need to pack up and leave, or we're going to find you," Villanueva said.
According to Villanueva illegal marijuana farms grew from 150 operations to more than 500 over the last year. The enormous scale of the problem is enough to drive legal marijuana growers out of business as wells as produce farmers competing for scarce water resources, authorities said. The massive law-enforcement effort is ongoing and also involved the Drug Enforcement Administration, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Army, and sheriff's personnel from Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino and Kern counties, said Villanueva.
More than 400 personnel were involved in the raids. FOX11 captured video of raids targeting 70 individual greenhouses with bulldozers provided by the City of Lancaster.
"We're going to continue … until there's not a single marijuana grow left standing here in the high desert," Villanueva said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. "That is a tall order, but … it needs to happen to basically put this to an end."
Details of the raid were murky as arrests and seizures continued throughout the day. More than two dozen search warrants were served by Tuesday afternoon and numerous other locations were being targeted.
By late morning, the sheriff's department reported that authorities have made "several arrests" and expected to recover "several thousand pounds of illegally grown marijuana by the end of today."
Sheriff's officials said the multi-agency operation was designed "to take down illegal cartel operated marijuana groves impacting farmers, families, and businesses."
Villanueva said legal marijuana growers in California are tightly regulated, but they are being driven out by illegal growing operations run by the cartels.
Among the problems associated with the illegal marijuana grows were violence, and the use of pesticides and a large amount of water by the criminals, Villanueva said.
"We're estimating that it takes about from 2020 numbers alone it takes about 150 million gallons of water for that harvest," Villanueva said.
"Here in the high desert, water is precious. We have alfalfa farmers, potato and carrot farmers," Villanueva said. "And seeing them go out of business to support illegal marijuana … which enriches the cartels is something we're not going to tolerate at all."
"That's how much it grew in the span of just one year – during a pandemic," Villanueva said. "As you can see, there were some people who were very, very busy during the pandemic."
Villanueva said violent crime "has been associated with these illegal grows."
"In 2020, we had two murders up here in the high desert, attached to illegal grows," Villanueva said. "In March of 2021, a murder victim was found buried in the desert near Lake Los Angeles, and the suspects wanted in connection with the murder operated an illegal marijuana grow right up here in Lake Los Angeles."
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https://patch.com/california/los-angeles/cartel-marijuana-grows-razed-massive-high-desert-raid-lasd