Six jailed for 10 years over 9,400-plant forest grow
Six men were jailed for 10 years each over a 9,400-plant marijuana grow in Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Hunters found the site in 2010; officers watched it for months before more than 200 officers raided it in August 2011.
🇺🇸 Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin · Wisconsin, United States
U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb sentenced Norberto Burciaga, 40, of St. Paul, Minnesota, to 10 years in federal prison on 14 March 2012 for conspiring to manufacture marijuana in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest during 2011.[1]Burciaga had pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in December 2011.[1]
The grow was first found in November 2010, when hunters reported it to U.S. Forest Service officers.[1][2]Officers monitored the area through 2011, and after months of surveillance more than 200 officers from over a dozen local, state and federal agencies raided the growers’ campsite, seizing over 9,400 marijuana plants the men had planted, fertilized and watered.[1][2]
Burciaga was arrested in August 2011 with Jose Esqueda-Garcia, Moises Lopez-Ontiveros, Cesar Tinoco, Abraham Ramirez and Jorge Lopez-Ontiveros.[1][2]Four of the men first eluded capture and spent the night in the forest; Sawyer County deputies stopped Burciaga’s truck the next day as he arrived from Minnesota to pick them up.[1][2]The other five men were each sentenced to 10 years in February 2012.[1][2]
Case data
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