"Operation Family Tree" Busts Network Of 18 Marijuana Grow Houses In Central Florida; All Said To Be Rental Homes

In Pinellas County, Florida, The Tampa Tribune reports:

• After a months-long investigation prompted by an anonymous tip, authorities [last week] swooped down on 18 marijuana grow houses they say were coordinated by one man. Eighteen people were arrested and about $31,000 was seized, said Pinellas County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Marianne Pasha. Detectives also dismantled the operations, confiscating more than 850 plants along with humidifiers, air conditioners, lamps and filtration systems used to grow them. [...] The operation was given the name Operation Family Tree because many of the suspects are related by blood or marriage or were friends.

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• Rental homes were used for the grow operations, he said. Some were found today to contain as few as 23 plants; some had up to 100. Investigators say the coordinated effort annually could have produced a harvest worth more than $4 million.

For more, see;

• Pinellas Drug Sting Nets 18 Grow Houses, 18 Arrests,
• Pinellas County Sheriff's Office news release.

For a recent story on marijuana grow house busts in neighboring Hillsborough County, Florida, see Sheriff's Grow House Crackdown Bears Fruit. Go here for Hillsborough pot farm map for Marijuana grow houses busted by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department.

Go here for Suburbs the New Hot Spot For Pot Growers, a story originally published in the Daytona Beach News Journal of a Central Florida pot farm operator who set up his operation using dozens of suburban homes rented from landlords before ultimately landing in the slammer.

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