Coming to cities and towns in Wisconsin soon.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Northern Wisconsin’s Chequameqon-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.
According to court documents, investigators discovered nine plots of
plants in the southeastern tip of the Nicolet section after a person
noticed two Hispanic men preparing a grow site in the forest.
Federal, state and local police spent June and July tailing suspected
growers, following pickup trucks down abandoned logging roads and
watching Hispanic men appear in the trees and toss nylon sacks
resembling grain feed bags into the beds.
They followed one suspect to a Fleet Farm in Green Bay, where he
purchased six pairs of pruning shears. They watched another man
purchase 9 mm ammunition at a nearby Wal-Mart, documents said.
The suspected growers eventually led investigators to a house in
Seymour, about 15 miles southwest of Green Bay. According to court
documents, the house was a marijuana processing factory.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, drug agents
around the country seized about a million plants a year between 2004
and 2008. In 2008 alone, agents seized or destroyed 7.6 million
marijuana plants from about 20,000 illicit plots.
In Wisconsin, the number of seized plants in grew six-fold between
2003 and 2008, a year when more than 32,000 plants were seized.
Authorities eradicated $2.5 million worth of marijuana plants in the
national forest system alone, said Richard Glodowski, special agent
in charge of the U.S. Forest Service’s investigations in the eastern
half of the U.S.
Drug investigators believe Mexican cartels are largely responsible
for the spike. Growing the drug here helps them get it to major
American markets more quickly. They often import unskilled laborers
from Mexico to help find the best land and tend their crops.
The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest covers about 1.5 million
acres across northern Wisconsin and is divided into two sections —
the 860,000-acre Chequamegon in far northwestern Wisconsin and the
660,000-acre Nicolet portion in northeastern Wisconsin.
The southeastern edge of the Nicolet portion lies about 50 miles from
Green Bay and hosts about three-quarters of the 700,000 visitors who
travel to both sections each year, said Tony Erba, the forest’s
deputy supervisor. Featuring dense woods, streams and lakes, the
forest is a veritable playground for campers, hikers, ATV enthusiasts
and hunters — and a perfect haven for growing marijuana.
About 163,000 people use the southeastern tip of the Nicolet where
the farms were established each year. Most of the plots were in
secluded areas, forest supervisor Paul Strong said. But investigators
realized bear hunting season and fall leaves would soon bring more
people into the woods and decided to take down the operation on Tuesday.
Investigators discovered at least nine different plots in the 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. The attorney general
estimated that each plant might yield a pound of marijuana worth
about $1,000.
“This amount of marijuana in northern Wisconsin is a big, big
deal,” Van Hollen said.
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.
Eight men were arrested and arraigned Wednesday in federal court on
charges of conspiring to manufacture and distribute more than 1,000
marijuana plants and possession with intent to deliver more than 100
marijuana plants. Four more men were arraigned on Thursday. Three
were charged with the same counts. The fourth, Bernabe J. Nunez-
Guzman, was charged only with conspiracy, but court documents
indicate he was the ring leader.
An unnamed informant arrested at the Seymour house told detectives on
Wednesday he was in San Jose, Calif., several months ago when he was
approached by a man who asked him if he wanted to work at a ranch.
This person arranged for the man to travel to Green Bay, where he met
Nunez-Guzman.
The informant said he helped dry marijuana at the house and Nunez-
Guzman, also known as “Green Bay,” was the boss. He came to the
house every 15 days to check on the operation and sent a runner into
the woods every three days to check the crop.
Federal defender Krista Halla-Valdes, who represents the four men
charged Thursday, said she hasn’t seen any evidence in the case and
it’s too early to comment.
Cartel grow recruiters often look for people with family in Mexico so
they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working and quiet.
If anyone betrays the farm, they go after the worker’s family,
intelligence experts say.
