Angeles Forest : 400 Marijuana Plants Seized at ‘Plantation’

More than 400 marijuana plants, some 12 feet tall and in total worth about $2 million, were seized from a mountain “plantation” north of Tujunga, and three Pacoima men have been arrested, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective said Tuesday.

Detective Anthony Shapiro said U.S. Forest Service agents spotted the plants last July during aerial surveillance, and had kept the suspects, who returned on a regular basis, under watch since then.

Sunday afternoon, 10 Forest Service agents and 10 deputies raided the 300-yard field in Fusier Canyon, six miles north of Tujunga, and arrested the men on suspicion of cultivating marijuana, Shapiro said.

The suspects’ names were withheld because other arrests are expected, Shapiro said.

Along with the 416 plants, which were almost ready to be harvested, authorities said they also confiscated assault weapons owned by the suspects.

“These are modern-time, organized marijuana cultivators,” Shapiro said. The pot they grew, he said, was to be distributed throughout Los Angeles County.

Shapiro said narcotics investigators find a handful of plantations in local rural areas during harvesting season.

“It cuts down on the overhead,” he said. “You don’t have to go to Mexico” to get the marijuana.