On Friday, June 28, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office coordinated a series of counter-drug operations in Siskiyou County, seizing 4,134 illegal marijuana plants, primarily in the Big Springs area of the county, which is located southeast of Yreka. The seizures included search warrants served on eight parcels, including illegal marijuana cultivation sites.
52.2 pounds of processed marijuana were seized during the search warrant operations. The Siskiyou Interagency Marijuana Investigation Team (SIMIT) led the counter-drug raids, focusing their operations on large, illegal marijuana cultivation sites both outdoors and contained in greenhouses on rural county area parcels.
Combining May and June to-date 2019 enforcement totals, 23,222 illegal marijuana plants have been seized in May and June. SIMIT has seized 898.7 pounds of processed marijuana, some of it packaged in one-pound bags for illegal distribution and sales. Charges are pending against property owners implicated in the illicit drug trafficking operation.
Annual year-to-date values of the 23,222 illegal marijuana plants seized, based on a mature, 3-pound average yield per-plant, equates to a retail black market value on the Eastern United States (US) range from $139.3 million to $208.9 million. The processed marijuana year-to-date seizures (898.7 pounds), based on Eastern US illicit retail drug market values range from approximately $1.7 million to $2.7 million.