Biggest Pot Raid Of The Year

The Times

DAYTON - Law enforcement agents this week removed more than 28,000 marijuana plants from the Eckler Mountain and Hartsock areas of Columbia County and arrested two more Mexican nationals in what one local official calls the largest pot bust in the state this year.

Columbia County Sheriff's deputies, U.S. Forest Service agents and Washington State Troopers seized 25,765 marijuana plants with a street value of about $25.7 million on Thursday after making two arrests and destroying 2,300 plants worth about $2.3 million on Wednesday.

"I've been advised that this is the biggest grow eradicated this year in Washington state," Columbia County Narcotics Deputy Jeff Jenkins said about the Thursday bust alone.

The removal of the two grows brings to nearly 37,000 the number of pot plants worth about $37 million removed in four different busts during the past month, Jenkins said.

"It's been a very busy week and a very busy month," he said. "It took lots of preparation and planning."

Jenkins credits a team effort involving some 50 officers, including a SWAT Team from Walla Walla County and the City of Walla Walla plus a large contingent of State Patrol officers for bringing down the grows and making more arrests among the suspected growers.

Jose Meraz Farias, 42, and Martin Chipres Madriz, 43, were taken into custody around noon Wednesday, when Columbia County Sheriff's deputies acted on a tip that earlier this year a hunter had come across an old camp had a water pipe running down the canyon near Hartsock grade.

Both men were charged with the manufacturing of marijuana and being "aliens" in possession of a fire arm. Their arrest came one month after a first Mexican national, Santiago Orozco-Contreras , 41, was booked into Columbia County jail for the same offense in the Cold Creek area of the upper Tucannon insde the Umatilla National Forest.

Farias and Madriz had their bond hearing Thursday with bail for each set at $150,000, the same amount as Orozco-Contreras, who is still in Columbia County jail while federal authorities reportedly are preparing an indictment against him.

Jenkins and other members of the state's Marijuana Eradication Team hiked two miles off the top of Hartsock Grade. About 500 yards from the bottom of the canyon, they came across numerous small marijuana grows and a camp site.

"The team located two male subjects inside the grow near the camp site," Jenkins wrote in court documents supporting the case against the suspects.

The first was Madriz, "tending to the plants in one of the grows." Within the hour, they came across the second subject, Farias, just outside of the camp area. Both men were armed.

"Madriz was armed with a Browning 22 long rifle handgun and Farias was armed with a Smith & Wesson 9mm semi automatic handgun," Jenkins wrote.

Two hours after the arrests, the team began to process evidence around the grow and the camp site and load up the pot plants for eradication.

Local authorities said they prefer all three men be prosecuted in the federal court system as they can be sentenced for as many as five years, compared to the one-year sentence that would likely be handed down if they were convicted in Columbia County.