Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009

Swamp hid local marijuana operation

ASH, N.C. -- The Brunswick County Sheriff's Office reaped the harvest of someone else's marijuana operation Friday as deputies sliced 6-foot to 10-foot stalks from the large black pots where they were growing in the Green Swamp.

Sheriff John Ingram said there is very little chance that the growers will be identified, but officers on the scene said that evidence will be gathered and tips sought.

"Fingerprint evidence is going to be huge," Sgt. Israel West of the department's drug unit said at the edge of the thick woods where the operation was discovered.

Capt. Gene Caison, head of the department's detective division, said 18 or 19 pots, each with three to four marijuana plants, were found perhaps 100 yards into the woods. Two plastic tents covered with camouflage tarps were at the site. One of the tents contained gas to run a pump to water the plants and other material. The other contained plants hanging upside down so that the buds could dry to be ready for street sales.

The sheriff's office first heard of the operation last week on a tip from the landowner who had been told of the operation by some hunters, Ingram said. Neither the landowner nor the hunters wanted to be named.

It took days of searching to find the first pot of marijuana, he said. The rest were found Friday morning by helicopter.

Ingram said the activity likely alerted the growers that their operation had been discovered. He said there was evidence they had abandoned the site, taking some things with them. He would not say what those things were.

The growing site was several hundred yards from Makatoka Road, off a rutted, muddy dirt road that connects Makatoka and N.C. 211.

The land abuts a plot purchased last year by the N.C. Nature Conservancy to protect Juniper Creek.

Ingram called the operation medium-size.

"They had everything in place to produce as many plants as possible," he said.