<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-ex-potbust13apr13,1,2734203.story?coll=la-default-underdog>http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-ex-potbust13apr13,1,2734203.story?coll=la-default-underdog
Another Rowland Heights home busted for pot
By Andrew Blankstein Times Staff Writer
9:37 AM PDT, April 12, 2007
Authorities say they've discovered another suburban house in the eastern San Gabriel Valley being used to grow millions of dollar in marijuana.
The latest find occurred late Wednesday on a quiet street in Rowland Heights. Sheriff's detectives, responding to a tip, served a search warrant on Nearbank Drive, finding a sophisticated pot-growing operation. They recovered 1,576 plants worth an estimated $9.4 million.
Over the past month, detectives have recovered nearly $50 million worth of pot at seven houses in Diamond Bar, Chino Hills, Rowland Heights and Pomona.
Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said the number of indoor marijuana plants seized by federal, state and local authorities in California has quadrupled in the past three years, from at least 54,000 plants to nearly 200,000 in 2006.
The sheriff's departments of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties have arrested half a dozen people and expect more arrests as the investigations continue.
Many of those seizures have occurred in middle-class and upscale suburbs, where the pot growers took advantage of cheap home financing -- and minimal credit checks -- to purchase homes and remodel them into sophisticated farms, authorities said.
Using equipment that can cost as much as $75,000, the homes were transformed into illicit greenhouses complete with blacked-out windows, sophisticated irrigation, high-powered and timed lighting and ventilation devices to hide the smell of the plants.
Since last August, officials in Northern California have arrested 16 people and seized 50 suburban pot homes and 24,000 pounds of marijuana linked to an Asian organized crime syndicate operating in Canada and the U.S. Officials are not sure if those cases are connected to those in Southern California.
andrew.blankstein at latimes.com