Three day seek-and-destroy mission the largest of the growing
season
Hollister – Police seized and destroyed thousands of marijuana plants this week and arrested four men in possession of a stolen police handgun, who police believe are connected with at least 10 covert marijuana gardens growing in the remote hills of south San Benito County.
Local and state drug agents spent three days scouting, scouring and eradicating the gardens located near the Hernandez Dam area, and arrested four men who they believe were cultivating the gardens on Wednesday, according to Bob Cooke, commander of the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in San Jose.
Agents had seized and destroyed 7,761 plants in seven different gardens on Wednesday, and anticipated destroying at least that many more by the time they finished on Thursday, Cooke said.
Last year, drug agents seized about 11,000 plants total in San Benito County, according to Unified Narcotic Enforcement Team Commander Mark Colla. While the marijuana growing season usually lasts from around April to the end of August, this was the largest bust police made this season.
Officers said that the plants were some of the largest they had seen in years, reaching heights of 12 feet in some gardens. If the gardeners’ efforts to harvest the plants weren’t thwarted by police, they could have yield nearly $4,000 per plant on the street, Cooke said. That would total $60 million if police wind up busting 15,000 plants as expected.
The three men arrested were found near the entrance to the gardens and charged with a host of felonies, including cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and carrying a concealed weapon, according to San Benito County Jail personnel.
Juventino Torres Delgado, 20, Armando Torres Delgado, 27 and Javier Valencia, 31, living in different cities throughout the state, were arrested and booked in the San Benito County Jail. However, the fourth man, Las Vegas resident Seth Lee Bennett, 28, was released Thursday and no charges were filed against him, according to jail personnel.
While making arrests in connection with a large marijuana grow isn’t rare, it isn’t common, either, Cooke said.
“It’s difficult to find people in marijuana grows,” he said. “We’re lucky. If it hadn’t been for the people living down here and being extremely cooperative, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make those arrests.”
