SEATTLE: New target in fight against indoor marijuana growing

New target in fight against indoor marijuana growing

Anti-drug authorities turn their focus to firms that sell services and goods
needed to operate illegal indoor farms.

By Stuart Glascock
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 27, 2008

TUKWILA, WASH. — First they noticed a spike in home-based marijuana growing
operations. Seattle-area authorities shuttered 450 indoor pot farms in two
years.

Then they zeroed in on the supply chain, targeting businesses that provide
goods and services needed to grow the illegal weed indoors.

Then they went after a mortgage loan company they say financed houses in
which the plants were grown.

After a 13-month investigation dubbed Operation Green Reaper, the
multi-agency Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force arrested more than
a dozen people, seized 15,000 plants and uprooted a suspected pot-growing
network.

Instead of focusing on growers or smokers, federal authorities in the
Seattle area clamped down last week on those they believe to be players in
the behind-the-scenes infrastructure, specifically two gardening supply
stores and a home mortgage broker.

"It is important for us to focus on the people who allow marijuana grows to
exist," said Mark Bartlett, first assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle. "We
had not focused on that in the past."

A federal grand jury in Seattle indicted the owners of Greenhouse & Garden
Supply in Tukwila and Scitek Garden Supply in Auburn on suspicion of
conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and conspiracy to commit money
laundering.

The indictments alleged that the stores had peddled equipment used to
manufacture marijuana: soil, pots, fertilizers, pesticides, lights, fans and
watering systems as well as specialized items such as electrical diversion
equipment and air filters. They also allegedly provided "starter plants."

They went far beyond "selling high-powered lights," Bartlett said. "They
were providing start-to-finish services, advice and materials. They were
even providing dumpsters."

Internal Revenue Services agents also scoured the records of Jet City
Mortgage in Kent in connection to possible mortgage fraud related to homes
where indoor marijuana crops were found.

Increased border security may have prompted drug dealers from British
Columbia, Canada, to move operations south, law enforcement agencies said.

Individuals have grown marijuana in their basements for years, Bartlett
said. But drug dealers' heightened level of organization is new.

"They are going out and buying nice houses in nice neighborhoods," he said.
"They put in their own people and supply all the materials and do the
distribution."

Many of the "grow homes" were in upscale residential neighborhoods and had
every appearance of everyday homes, said Jodie Underwood, a special agent
with the Drug Enforcement Administration. And the garden supply stores in
suburban bedroom communities looked like ordinary businesses.

Greenhouse & Garden Supply in Tukwila sits in a light-industrial and office
park about one block from an Interstate 5 onramp, 12 miles south of Seattle.
Neighboring tenants in the cluster of small businesses include a bagel
bakery, a freight forwarding company and a tool shop.

A green logo next to Greenhouse & Garden Supply's signage shows a water
bucket, light bulb and bottle of fertilizer. Lights were on inside, but a
"closed" sign hung on the front door Friday. Federal agents served a search
warrant there earlier in the week.

DEA investigators said one of the garden supply businesses ran newspaper ads
showing marijuana leaves and pictures of growing equipment.

According to the affidavits, authorities found bags containing denuded
marijuana stalks and potting soil at Scitek Garden Supply. They said the
business was connected to indoor growing fields comprising a total of nearly
15,000 plants.

A few of the federal drug agency's investigations have focused on suppliers
of growing equipment used for illegal operations, said Steve Robertson, a
DEA special agent in Washington, D.C. In such cases, the investigators
collect evidence revealing that the suspects "know the equipment was going
to be used for illegal purposes."

stuart.glascock [at] latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-gardeners27apr27,1,4999510.story