Officers from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Gila County, the Forest Service and the Department of Public Safety swooped on a marijuana farm in the Fossil Springs Wilderness on Monday 15 August 2005 after a DPS helicopter overflight alerted the growers to the police presence.[1] The crop was scattered and hidden over about three miles of steep, heavily forested canyons just north of Strawberry, and a hiker’s tip about suspicious activity had led police to it.[1][2]
Four men found tending or guarding the plants were arrested: Gerardo Manzo Pulido, Jesus Castillo Melendres, Oscar Nunez Medina and David Valencia Gonzalez.[1] One of them ran but was taken down by a police dog, and officers said surveillance footage showed Medina heavily armed with an assault rifle.[1] A federal magistrate ordered all four held pending trial, and they faced a minimum of 10 years in prison.[1]
The count of the Fossil Springs crop stood anywhere from 20,000 to 36,000 plants, with counting still under way, while two earlier linked busts on the nearby Tonto National Forest had yielded about 80,000 plants by the U.S. Attorney’s estimate.[1] Altogether about 100,000 plants worth a reported $150 million were being uprooted in the linked busts, which prosecutors said were run by the same organization, with eleven people arrested in total.[1]
