Posted: Thursday, 11 March 2010 5:30AM
New Jersey's Largest Pot Bust
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The investigation continues after Jersey authorities announced the largest marijuana bust in the history of the Garden State.
Attorney General Paula Dow says "we've seized more than 10 million dollars worth of actively growing marijuana plants and processed marijuana" along with 65 thousand dollars in cash and a vast array of high tech cultivation equipment.
She says a group of Vietnamese individuals "were using a network of rented residential properties in Middlesex and Monmouth Counties to operate highly sophisticated indoor marijuana growing facilities…each of the 5 houses was outfitted with specialized growing lights, ventilation systems…it's clear that we're dealing here with a very, very sophisticated criminal enterprise."
Dow adds investigators still don't know exactly how the defendants were distributing all the pot, but "you don't grow that quantity and that value of product for yourself and your friends, you don't grow it for medicinal use…we've never seen an indoor growing operation like this."
Three people have been arrested, and three others are still being sought.
Monroe township police officer Tom Lucasiewicz was responsible for breaking the case wide open. He says he was pursuing a DUI suspect when suddenly he smelled marijuana in the air. When he realized marijuana smoke was pouring out of the chimney of a nearby home, he called for backup, and when police entered the house, they found a man burning unusable parts of pot plants in the fireplace - and a vast indoor growing area downstairs in the basement.
"I thought I was dreaming" he said.
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