Teen Turns In Father On Marijuana Growing Operation

When you can even trust your own kids, who can you trust?

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – A Murfreesboro father is in trouble after his own son turned him in for growing marijuana.

Police went to the family home after the 15-year-old called to report allegations of physical abuse. When officers arrived the teen handed them a marijuana plant growing in a small flower pot.  Inside the home, police found several plants in two illegal grow operations and arrested the father.

“The juvenile went inside and came out with a marijuana plant that was part of a grow operation inside the house,” said Kyle Evans with Murfreesboro Police.

In an exclusive interview the teen’s father told NewsChannel 5: “I could not believe my son would turn against his father like that.”

In addition to the marijuana plants and grow lights, Murfreesboro police also confiscated scales and supply of processed marijuana from the home. There’s no indication the suspect was growing the marijuana to sell.

(Source) http://www.newschannel5.com

R.I. State Police Want Medical Marijuana Grower Information

Photo: Ocean State Cannabis

​The new colonel of the Rhode Island state police wants state health officials to provide law enforcement with information about medical marijuana caregivers if they are targets of criminal investigations.

Col. Steven G. O’Donnell told The Associated Press that being able to verify whether an individual is authorized to grow cannabis at home would prevent unnecessary police search warrants and raids.

O’Donnell claimed it would save money on investigations and protect participants in the state’s medical marijuana program.

Regulations prohibit the Rhode Island Department of Health from publicly disclosing who is authorized to grow medical marijuana, or to use it to treat illness.

Medical marijuana patient advocates said they are not ruling out the involvement of law enforcement, but they want medical information to be kept private.

Medical marijuana is currently grown privately in Rhode Island. Governor Lincoln Chafee put plans for state-licensed dispensaries on hold after receiving a letter from the U.S. Attorney for the state that threatened to prosecute dispensary operators and landlords.

El Monte Marijuana Bust Uncovers $1 Million In Pot

When Los Angeles deputies responded to a burglary-in-progress call in El Monte, they had no idea they’d be stumbling across one of the biggest marijuana grow houses in the city’s history.

On Saturday morning, four men and a teen boy were caught trying to break in to what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse on Continental Avenue. Instead of guns or other weapons, the thieves were armed with gloves and clippers, reports NBC LA. Their getaway car? A U-Haul.

Eventually, one of the suspects tipped authorities off about their intended target: over 3,000 marijuana plants valued at around $1 million. After obtaining a search warrant, El Monte police entered the warehouse to carry out what is being touted as “the biggest drug bust in El Monte history.”

KTLA’s look inside the El Monte warehouse plantation reveals a secret 3-foot high crawl space where a guard was stationed to watch the door through an air-conditioning vent. Inside, a sophisticated system of lighting and irrigation nurtured thousands of marijuana plants that were just three weeks away from harvest. Finally, the growers evaded detection by sourcing their electricity directly from underground wires, which authorities believe enabled them to steal $10,000 of electricity per month.

One of the robbery suspects alleges that the grow house belongs to his family, who was cutting him out of the profits. He had wrangled four friends to help him claim his share. From the Daily News Wire Service:

Benjamin Kwok, 37, of San Gabriel, Xing Xi He, 24, of Baldwin Park, Louie Frank Fraijo, 28, also of Baldwin Park, Raymond Guan, 29, of Rosemead and a 17-year-old boy from San Gabriel were all arrested and booked for commercial burglary…

El Monte is no stranger to jackpot marijuana busts. In 2008, a home in a small gated community was busted for housing a $1 million marijuana plantation. In 2010, police busted two more home plantations with estimated values of $250,000 and $1 million.

Superfast Computers Triggering Botched Marijuana Grow Raids

Photo: Bitcoin Miner

Turns out, looking only at electric usage from a residence, the consumption for bitcoin mining won’t look much different from a marijuana grow-op. Cue clueless cops.

You don’t have to be growing marijuana to get raided for it. At least one Bitcoin miner has been raided by police because unusually high power usage led them to suspect he was growing marijuana, according to unconfirmed reports on Monday.

The tip comes from an IRC chat captured by blogger Mike Esspe, though there are no corroborating details, reports Jerry Brito of Techland.

Bitcoin is the anonymous virtual currency that uses distributed computing power to validate online coins. “It’s like gold mining, except that instead of digging, a miner uses cryptographic math,” reports Techland.

Screen capture: Mike Esspe

Does this mean, that with the growing number of bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

Like clandestine indoor marijuana growing operations, Bitcoin mining uses large amounts of electricity and runs up big power bills. It does this because it employs super-fast computers.

High power consumption has often alerted police to marijuana growing operations and has thus led to busts.

“The Canadian town of Mission, B.C. has a bylaw that allows the town’s Public Safety Inspection Team to search people’s homes for grow ops if they are using more than 93 kWh of electricity per day,” according to the blog Bitcoin Miner.

Though a typical mining rig will consume only a fraction of that amount, Bitcoin miners are adding capacity, and with multiple rigs, more and more miners are exceeding the level which triggers police interest, according to the blog.

Residents have been charged a $5,200 inspection fee – even if no marijuana or signs of a grow operation are found, reports Cam Tucker at the Delta Optimist.

Some Mission residents who feel their rights have been violated by the arbitrary searches, and have begun a class-action lawsuit against the District of Mission in B.C. Supreme Court.

There had already been speculation that mining Bitcoins will bring unwanted and misdirected attention from the police.

“I’m still waiting for the first bitcoin grow-op raid,” a Bitcoin mining pioneer had commented on an IRC channel back in January.

Increasingly ubiquitous supercomputing could lead to more and more false positives, not just for Bitcoin miners, but for hardcore gamers too, as well as anyone running video rendering farms or web servers from home, according to Techland.

“It will be interesting to see how courts will adapt to such uses when interpreting reasonable suspicion standards,” Brito writes.

Does this mean, that with the growing number of Bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/superfast_computers_triggering_botched_marijuana_g.php#more

17 Pounds of Marijuana Growing in Man’s Basement

OSWEGO — Oswego police say they found more than 17 pounds of marijuana growing in a man’s basement at a home where four young children lived.

Police initially responded to 229 Munn Street around 10:47 p.m. Friday for reports of a domestic dispute. When they got there, police say, they smelled a strong marijuana-like odor.

Police say Shawn Hort, 35, admitted to possessing marijuana. Police say a search of the home turned up an indoor marijuana grow in the basement. Police say they found 175 marijuana plants along with high density lights, two separate air filtration systems and all necessary hydroponics containers, chemicals and pumps. Investigators also say they found a large quantity of dried marijuana packaged in several different containers.

Hort is charged with criminal possession of marijuana, endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful growing of cannabis. He was arraigned in Oswego City Court and sent to the Oswego County Correctional Facility in lieu of $1,000 cash bail.

If you have any information, call Oswego police at (315) 342-2283. You can also remain anonymous and call the tip-line at (315) 342-8131 or send an email to: crimewatch@oswegony.org.

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=603888