Humboldt Sheriff’s Office Talks Numbers on Island Mountain Raids
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office served (7) seven search warrants on (7) seven separate parcels of property. The search warrants were for commercial marijuana growing operations located in over 40 separate large green house type structures on the parcels of property. The search warrants were served on parcels of property located off Hogtrap Road and South Face Road, Island Mountain. The search warrants were served from Monday, June 22, 2015 through Thursday, June 25, 2015. No suspect(s) were located on the parcels.
The Sheriff’s Office seized or eradicated the following items from the search warrants:
- 23,211 marijuana plants.
- 4,394 pounds of processed marijuana.
- 15 pounds of marijuana hash in brick form.
- 16-firearms.
- 50,000 rounds of ammunition in the following calibers, .50 caliber, .308 caliber and 5.56 caliber.
Deputies documented illegal dumping of garbage, unpermitted grading of land, and water diversion on the (7) parcels of property. Deputies are working with the State of California Department of Fish and Wild Life Services in their investigations in identifying the property owners and suspect(s) involved in the environmental damage done on the parcels of property. The Sheriff’s Office will submit their reports to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office for review and possible criminal charges to be filed against the suspect(s) involved in this commercial marijuana growing operations.
A (8) eighth search warrant was served on a parcel of property in the Island Mountain area by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. A female subject was contacted and was growing approximately (50) marijuana plants on her property. After the investigation it was determined that she was in compliance was medical marijuana guide lines in the State of California. No marijuana was seized from her property and the female subject was not arrested.
The street value of the marijuana seized and eradicated is approximately 26.5 million dollars.
These cases are still under investigation by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.
Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at 707-268-2539.
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Jesus. 50k rounds of .50 cal, et al? Were they preparing to secede from the state? Obviously that didn’t work. They got raided anyway.
I was told by an officer on the raid that all the firearms but one were found on a site raided Thursday. All the photos in this article are of that site.
Looks just like my living room before spring cleaning ;^p
And the bladders? Nice! One of my neighbors tells a story of having sex on one, triggered by me innocently asking, “Did you hear those bobcats last night?”
I ran into the 9:00 am Monday convoy (almost literally) but neglected to record, sorry….next time I’ll make a vid…..
There you go. A reporter that actually drove out and covered the story in person.
Article from that perspective coming soon.
Waiting with bated breath. It should be quite interesting.
Wow wouldnt it be nice if they went after illegal garbage dumps instead of people having to donate a lot time and money to do it themselves? Especially since one of the worst dump sites was not too far from these busts. Volunteers pulled multiple vehicles out of that dump!!! Tactical volunteer search&rescue folks had to scale down on ropes to get things out. A few trash bags by that trailer are nothing in comparison. Not even that whole grow scene dismantled would compare. Choosing to investigate crimes when it serves the needs of police rather than across the board just creates more distrust.
If you mean Alderpoint, we are more than an hour from the raid sites. That said, the county certainly could have, at the least, waived dump fees for the trash these volunteers pulled (and continue to pull) out of the site.
Well thank you for your efforts – we try to police our own out here, but it’s difficult. Example: We live on a shared driveway, and last fall someone systematically dropped 8 super-large contractor bags of pot waste (everything from used diapers to fertilizer bags) …..no way it was an accident. So here’s the dark side of the big money: A lot of MF’s that don’t give a damn about the land, strewing garbage and then running outtahere with the bucks – I can’t count the times neighbors have promised to do road maintenance after having 3-4 truckloads of water a day on these old ranch roads….it’s ridiculous. Most of the old timers that cared have moved out……
When will they FINALLY go after Murder Mountain? Or are meth and hash labs OK?
What the f— were they thinking?
Uh, $$$$$$$$$$
Look at the photos. Some of the sites are very different looking than the others.
And mom and pop keep their herb and walk. Right on.
I really like that 210,000 gallon water storage bladder (aka King Kong waterbed). At least someone was storing water.
Yes, and it will be interesting to know if it is still there now. I have second hand reports of police vandalism of water systems on the Mendocino side of these raids. May not be true, of course, but past police practices have been quite destructive and wasteful, environmental rhetoric not withstanding.
Tmi**
Uti, I was hoping to get your feedback on what the agencies’ position seems to be—ie storing water is harmful to the environment.
Storing winter’s water (if that is the water in those storage containers) is only one aspect of not degradating the ecosystem. Growers hauling in literally tons of nutrient rich “soil” onto bulldozed hill sides is potentially equally as harmful as de-watering, is it not?
Outdoor commercial agriculture (in any aspect) needs to take place in the river valley floors, where natural soil is conducive to being organically managed, so that illegal and unnatural “soil” importing is no longer an issue.
Your thoughts on my opinions, Uti?
One site had 13 3000-gallon tanks kept filled from the Eel.
And we know this how? I didn’t get this information in the public statements. Do you mean they were currently filling the tanks from the river, or that they did in the past. If in the past, in the rainy season when flow is high, or recent past when flow is extremely low?
Wow! Just wow!
[…] held a press conference at 4 p.m. in Ukiah on what he called Operation Emerald Tri-County. (See Humboldt’s press release here.) According to Allman, in April of this year the Sheriffs from Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt were […]
From what I hear this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg there are thousands of growsbigger that that one
Folks on south face have had a rough few years. First they make a big donation to the boys out in salt lake and now this. Might be time to fold up the tarp and retire. Prices are gonna drop again next year anyhow. The Good days arrrr behind us mates
Time to get to the real mega sites, and bring the price of herb back up!
glad to hear a fifty plant grow with a medical recomendation was left in peace. as for the others,the pictures speak for themselves. HCSO good job.
No. Cheaper weed is what the world needs. Medicine should be available to everyone.
The Sheriffs plant count of appox 26,000 plants and the value of $26,000,000 is way off. that figure comes in at $1,000 per plant, Excuse me but I get maybe 4-5 plants per pound,in green house, that comes to $200 per plant, maybe I just suck at growing or the sheriff sucks at telling the truth. anybody with the same experience as me ? ?
The SO says, “The street value of the marijuana seized and eradicated is approximately 26.5 million dollars.” That would include the 23,211 marijuana plants, 4394 pounds of processed marijuana and the 15 pounds of marijuana hash in brick form.
If you get $1000 a pound which is very low end, the pounds of processed bud–presuming it is manicured and ready for sale ( which I doubt judging from the photos) would be $4,394,000.
I suspect law enforcement in making a pretty quick guess to satisfy the public’s questions. The guess is probably based on the idea that a plant produces a pound of bud (probably not in this case) and that each pound is worth a thousand (which is a low end estimate generally.) They are saying that the “processed bud” is worth a $1000/pound but the pot shown in the tubs is not a completely processed product ready for sale.
There are so many variables it is hard to make a guess on how much everything is worth. Indoor plants like those in the photo above rarely make a quarter pound each. How many of the plants seized were indoor? How many were dep (as you know pushed to flower early and thus much smaller)? How many were full term? Were they all grown by advanced growers?
If you do a $1000 per plant plus a $1000 per processed pound you actually come up with over $27M. Do I think it is accurate? No. Do I think it is a fair quick guess based on trying to guestimate so many factors? Yes. It is possible that the pot could be worth in excess of that amount. In reality…it is probably worth less than half.