SANTA YSABEL, Calif., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- U.S. drug agents say they found about 25,000 marijuana plants worth $100 million on a farm near San Diego believed to be run by Mexican drug traffickers.
San Diego County sheriff's helicopters repeatedly transported loads of the fully grown contraband from a remote Julian hillside, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
"It's definitely one of the larger operations of the year," Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Amy Roderick told the newspaper Tuesday. "We believe that this grow was run by the Mexican drug trafficking organizations. It's a sophisticated grow, a very large grow."
Sheriff's Deputy Steve Reed spotted the plants growing on Volcan Mountain on the Santa Ysabel Indian Reservation while on routine patrol in a helicopter looking for marijuana farms.
Reed, assigned to the San Diego County Integrated Narcotics Task Force, coordinated with DEA authorities to have agents hike with him into the area to cut down the plants for removal by helicopter and loaded onto trucks, which were then driven to a secret location for destruction, the Union-Tribune said.
Sheriff's pilot Sgt. Jon Shellhammer said he and pilot Sgt. Mark Johnston made an estimated 20 round trips hauling the marijuana weighing 300 to 500 pounds.
