White City — Oregon police say they have seized 250 tonnes of illegal marijuana from several industrial warehouses in White City.
Oregon police announced in a news release on Saturday that their southwestern drug control team provided an investigation warrant on a site containing five warehouses on Thursday. They found there more than 100 people (including a few migrant workers living in poor condition without running water) and what police called “massive illegally processed marijuana.” ..
The Drug Enforcement Department estimated that about 500,000 pounds of cannabis and firearms were found during the two-day search. According to Oregon police, marijuana was estimated to be worth about $ 500 million.
White City is a small community in Jackson County near the California border. Earlier this week, Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Sickler told lawmakers that crime rates associated with thousands of illegal marijuana farms this year in southern Oregon broke through the roof.
“We have experienced puncture wounds, robbery, theft, robbery, murder, sex crimes, car accidents and DUIs associated with the influx of marijuana cannabis industry in our valley,” said Sickler. .. “That’s certainly the problem we deal with on a daily basis here.”
He testified in front of a committee of the Oregon Legislature on Tuesday and sought help to stop the surge in illegal cultivated land in the region.
Site managers, who were boldly built last spring, primarily in rural Jackson and Josephine counties, stole water from rivers, streams and aquifers during severe drought and abused migrant workers. Officials said. In October, police attacked a site with approximately 2 tonnes of processed marijuana and 17,500 potted plants on the same day that a county in southern Oregon declared an emergency amid a surge in illegal cannabis farms.
Oregon police said the investigation in White City’s warehouse would take weeks.
This article was originally published in Register-Guard: Police seized 250 tonnes of illegal marijuana from a warehouse in White City