California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers arrested eight people during raids on six illegal cannabis grow sites in July and August 2025.[1] The raids took place in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Tehama counties.[1] The grow sites were on lands the public can enter, including Forest Service property, municipal water district land and large underdeveloped private properties.[1] CDFW’s Marijuana Enforcement Team led half of the raids and supported the others, and the agency said the Cannabis Enforcement Program, the multiagency Eradication and Prevention of Illicit Cannabis (EPIC) program and local agencies helped.[1] The eight suspects were arrested on possible charges including depositing hazardous substances on another’s land, cannabis cultivation that polluted state waters, cannabis cultivation causing substantial environmental harm to public lands, cultivation with unlawful take, and resisting arrest.[1] CBS News reported that CDFW did not identify any of the suspects.[2] The governor’s office put the same operation at 21,000 plants, eight arrests, two firearms and banned pesticides across the five counties.[3]

Officers eradicated 21,000 cannabis plants, which CDFW estimated would have used up to 9.5 million gallons of water over their growing cycles.[1] They destroyed more than 150 pounds (about 68 kilograms) of cannabis already processed for sale.[1] Officers seized two illegally possessed firearms and restored water flow at five places where water had been diverted.[1] They removed more than 2,300 pounds of trash and infrastructure and took away partly used bottles of carbofuran and methamidophos, pesticides banned in the United States.[1] CDFW said one suspect at a site where a firearm was found tried to flee when officers identified themselves and was caught by a team dog.[1] Plants collected as evidence at one San Bernardino County site tested positive for carbofuran, a pesticide confirmed in a soda bottle found there by an independent laboratory.[1]

Based on evidence at all six sites and interviews with suspects, the team concluded that transnational criminal organisations ran the grows.[1] Three of the six sites were found after reports from members of the public, including a hunter scouting for deer.[1] CDFW describes its Marijuana Enforcement Team, known as MET, as a 10-officer unit that specialises in raiding clandestine grows run by transnational criminal organisations on public lands.[1] Governor Gavin Newsom said illegal grows threaten the balance of the state’s water system and that violators would be held accountable.[3]