Hidden in Wis. national forest: marijuana megafarm
By TODD RICHMOND, AP, Yahoo News, Aug 12, 2010 [here]
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Northern Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest is a vast, verdant getaway for hundreds of thousands of campers, hikers and anglers every year. But hidden within was a marijuana megafarm.
Investigators say a band of Hispanic men turned the forest’s southeastern tip into a giant pot farm, growing thousands of plants on remote plots, moving supplies along forgotten logging roads and buying supplies and ammunition at local stores.
Nobody in law enforcement has said it publicly, but the style matches that of Mexican cartels that have been using public land in the United States to grow vast amounts of marijuana and avoid the risk and expense of smuggling the drugs across the border.
“There certainly is an element to this that leads one to believe there is a Hispanic connection here,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. He declined to elaborate. …
Investigators discovered at least nine different plots in the [Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest] as well as at least 1,000 plants on the adjacent Menominee Indian Reservation.
Oconto County Sheriff Mike Jansen estimated they seized about 50,000 plants, but Van Hollen cautioned that authorities were still counting and the number currently stood closer to 10,000. …
A search of the Seymour house found marijuana drying throughout it and a stash of firearms, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Officers said the smell of pot permeated the entire house. They also raided a storage unit, where they discovered a wire transfer of $2,500 to a man in Modesto, Calif., about $6,000 in cash and 72 pounds worth of processed marijuana in cardboard boxes and garbage bags — yet another cartel grow operation standby. … [more]
Nicolet forest’s solitude attracts major pot-growing operations
12 men charged after weapons, 50,000 plants are found
By Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug. 13, 2010 [here]
Mountain — The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest looks like a giant, verdant paint stroke across Wisconsin, and its remote beauty attracts many people - canoeists, hikers, birdwatchers, campers and anglers.
But it wasn’t the forest’s allure that drew a group of men to this bucolic setting, it was the isolation, abundance of water and ideal growing conditions for their crop.
A crop, officials say, that an increasing number of growers are willing to resort to violence to protect.
One day after eight men were charged in federal court with a massive marijuana growing operation at several sites in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, authorities noted that in the last two weeks at least three shootouts have erupted between marijuana growers and law enforcement officers in the United States and two growers were shot to death by officers in California forests.
“These can be very dangerous situations,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said at a news briefing in Oconto on Thursday afternoon, after four additional charges in the case brought the total to 12. “There’s a lot of money on the line here.”
Last year 2.5 million illegal marijuana plants were discovered in the national forest system and destroyed, said Rich Glodowski, special agent in charge for the U.S. Forest Service. …
Van Hollen declined to say whether the defendants are members of a Mexican drug cartel; investigators are checking to see whether the men are legally in the U.S. In recent years, national forests and parks in other states have been prime targets of Mexican drug gangs and their massive marijuana growing operations. … [more]
Note: The Obama Admin says forest un-management, open borders, and amnesty are the answers. Are they members of the Mexican Drug Cartel, too?
by Al B
Government land is exploited from crossing the border to producing illegal plant cultivation. We do not see similar problems where the private land owner has property along the border. So the issue is to sell the public land into private ownership and the owners will secure their properties and stop the cartel partnership between our government and the drug cartel.