Beginning 31 July 2017, Calaveras County sheriff’s investigators served more than 23 search warrants across the county in Operation Terminus, joined by Fish and Wildlife officers, the National Guard counterdrug task force, the state and regional water boards, the district attorney’s office, the Highway Patrol and Cal Fire after about six months of planning.[1] The Associated Press described four days of raids on more than a dozen farms as the county cracked down on illegal grows months before California legalized recreational sales.[2] Sheriff Rick DiBasilio called it the largest series of raids in county history.[2]
Early counts of 27,000 plants and 25 tons grew as the operation continued, and the sheriff’s 4 August update gave 28,650 marijuana plants, 12 opium pods, 31 tons of unprocessed marijuana, 1,898 pounds of processed marijuana, 13 firearms, a piece of body armor and just over $57,000 in cash.[1][2] The opium pods were not cannabis and are kept out of the cannabis figures here.[1] Investigators also logged 97 Fish and Wildlife violations, 29 water-quality violations, 24 water-rights violations and five Cal Fire land-conversion cases, including pesticide use and human waste discharged into waterways.[1]
One raided farm in Heiser Canyon held more than 6,000 plants, and five people were arrested there without incident; its growers claimed it belonged to the Sugarleaf Rastafarian Church network, whose leader said the church’s sacrament gave it a religious exemption, but the sheriff treated it as an illegal grow whose licence bid had been rejected the year before.[2] The operation’s criminal cases were sent to the district attorney’s office, which swore in a specialized prosecutor for the environmental crimes.[1]
