18 indicted in Central Valley marijuana, mortgage scheme

[tridim]

Federal prosecutors announced 18 indictments Thursday in a pot cultivation and mortgage fraud scheme that purchased homes in Elk Grove and Sacramento and converted them into bustling "grow houses" for tens of thousands of marijuana plants.

Nine people are in custody. Authorities are searching for other indicted suspects who may have fled from the Bay Area to China.

The individuals were charged with orchestrating bogus real estate transactions to buy 51 houses in the Central Valley, then establish indoor pot-growing operations using sophisticated lighting and irrigation and stealing thousands of dollars' worth of electricity.

"They came into our cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods and created cookie-cutter marijuana factories," said Gordon Taylor, assistant special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Sacramento.

Read More: http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2275725.html

Just freaking legalize it. What the hell is it going to take? The continuing war on drugs is INVITING foreign gangsters into our country.

[thunder rising]

1. That's just well done. Kudo's to the gang .. what else can you say? 51 houses?

[asdjrocky]

2. Idiots.

There are 20 grow shows going on within a mile of me. Every single one has enough med cards to justify the size of the crop. This is a no brainer, especially here in Ca.

Hell, this is the reason I know not one dime of my money has gone to any Mexican drug cartel since 1975.

[DJ13]

3. Mortgages were expensive

I'd have to grow pot to afford one in Sacramento during the last 10 years.

[tularetom]

4. Hurray for these good capitalists and f@#k the DEA

If the houses went vacant they could easily have been taken over by meth cookers or crack heads and caused a lot more trouble for the neighborhoods.

It's been said many times but it's still valid - the war on drugs is over. Drugs won.