South Florida Cops Charge 29 In "Straw Buyer Financed" Indoor Pot Farm Operation

In Palm Beach County, Florida, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports:

• Authorities charged 29 people Monday in connection with buying more than 25 homes, recruiting families with children to live in them and growing millions of dollars worth of marijuana in closed-door rooms with powerful lights. [...] Inside, the alleged traffickers kept exposed electrical wires, irrigation lines routed through toilets and sinks and enough chemicals, fertilizer and propane to cause explosions, [investigators said].

***

• The group's alleged leader — Miguel Fernandez, 45, of Miami — is accused of masterminding the purchase and conversion of homes, said William Shepherd, the statewide prosecutor with the Florida Attorney General's Office. He did it by using "straw" buyers, mostly recent immigrants from Cuba, to purchase the homes, move into them and then care for the plants, officials said. Once the plants were harvested, Fernandez and his lieutenants packed the marijuana, drove it to Miami-Dade County and sold it in New York.

For more, see 29 charged in marijuana 'grow houses' around South Florida.

See also, Florida Attorney General News Release: 29 Individuals Charged with Operating Marijuana Grow Houses in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade Counties.

Go here and go here for other posts on Marijuana Grow Houses. pot grow ops alpha