Officials believe the defendants are part of a much larger criminal operation based in Mexico. According to court documents, the drug trafficking operation used undocumented workers smuggled into the United States to tend to the marijuana crops.
This property on Menifee Road in Menifee was used as a “stash house” for an extensive marijuana-growing operation on public lands in Riverside and San Diego counties, according to officials with the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.
Drug agents spent hundreds of hours listening to phone conversations peppered with code words and tracking the movements of a handful of Riverside County residents now charged in what federal authorities describe as an extensive marijuana growing operation on public lands.
Drug agents listened in on 14 wiretapped phone lines as pot farmers suspected of ties to Mexican drug organizations discussed growing techniques for their plants and efforts to dodge law enforcement, court records say.
The two-year investigation was disclosed last week after a task force of local, state and federal law enforcement officers arrested six of 10 defendants now facing federal drug charges. Agents searched 15 locations in Riverside and San Diego counties, seizing guns, $237,000 in cash and 300 pounds of marijuana, according to officials from the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.
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