SAN LEANDRO, Calif. \u2014 Authorities in a northern California county said an 18-month investigation has led to the seizure of up to 500,000 marijuana plants and more than $10 million in cash.<\/p>\n
According to the Alameda County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the bust also included the confiscation of 6 tons of processed marijuana and a cache of weapons, KTVU<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n Sgt. Ray Kelly of the sheriff\u2019s office said the bust was the largest illegal growing operation in the Bay Area, the television station reported.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many plants, we have to use gas-powered hedge trimmers,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kelly said the operation involved more than a dozen locations in the East Bay area, including Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward and Castro Valley, KTVU<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n The deputy said that 500,000 square feet of commercial real estate was used to house the operation, adding that the cost of renting such a large amount of space would cost several million dollars per month, the television station reported.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the locations had corporate style furniture, break rooms. They had wine, refrigerators with thousand-dollar bottles of wine that they would just sip on,\u201d Kelly told KTVU<\/a>. \u201cTelevisions, vending machines, break rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n Kelly said the average size of each location was as much as 70,000 square feet.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s CO2 being pumped into these rooms, HEPA filters, filtering the air going out so you\u2019re not getting the massive odor,\u201d Kelly told KGO-TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n A warehouse in San Leandro was raided Thursday morning, the East Bay Times<\/a> reported. Deputies found 10,000 high-grade marijuana plants, Kelly said. No arrests were made at the site, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kelly said at one site, it took 12 tractor-trailers to transport the seized marijuana to a Central Valley site for destruction, the Times<\/a> reported. The total amount of plants and materials seized weighed 37.6 tons, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an organization operating outside the law and the protocols of governance of marijuana in California, unsanctioned and making millions in profits,\u201d Kelly said during a news conference. \u201cWhat\u2019s crazy about this is had they applied for proper permits and fees and paid all their licenses and tax fees, we wouldn\u2019t be here.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the largest grows we\u2019ve ever seen in recent memory. It\u2019s a massive operation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MARIJUANA PLANTS BITE THE DUST. SAN LEANDRO, Calif. \u2014 Authorities in a northern California county said an 18-month investigation has led to the seizure of up to 500,000 marijuana plants and more than $10 million in cash. According to the Alameda County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the bust also included the confiscation of 6 tons of processed Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[860,40,5,6,1],"tags":[965],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13370,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions\/13370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}