Kent garden shop owners admit supplying dozens of marijuana grows
The co-owner of Kent Distributor, a garden supply shop in Kent, Washington, pleaded guilty on 8 February 2008 to marijuana manufacturing conspiracy and money laundering after a 2007 investigation found the shop equipped more than 30 indoor grows; six people had been arrested in April 2007 raids that seized over 2,800 plants.
🇺🇸 18840 72nd Avenue South, Kent, Washington · Washington, United States
Six people were arrested on 11 April 2007 after a federal grand jury indicted the owners and staff of Kent Distributor, a garden supply shop in Kent, Washington, for conspiring to manufacture marijuana and launder money.[1][2]The shop, also called Kent Garden Supplies, imported equipment from Canada and sold it to growers on credit repaid from later harvests, while its staff advised them on finding houses, avoiding detection and shielding assets from forfeiture.[1]
Agents searched the shop, its offices and storage units the same day, plus five homes in Federal Way, Auburn, Renton, Packwood and Glenoma, seizing more than 1,800 mature plants and more than 1,000 starter plants.[1][2]The year-long investigation had already found thousands of plants at more than 30 indoor grows supplied by the shop, and prosecutors said more than US$5 million moved through its accounts between 2003 and late 2006.[1]
On 11 October 2007 James Nguyen and Thu Anh Tran, a Renton couple who owned ten houses used for grows, pleaded guilty to manufacturing conspiracy and structuring currency transactions.[3]They admitted collecting several hundred thousand dollars in 2005 rent from growers and agreed to forfeit one house.[3]On 8 February 2008 co-owner Le My Nguyen pleaded guilty to manufacturing conspiracy and money laundering, admitting she had advised growers, lent them the company van and run a grow at a rented Renton house where officers had found 658 plants in October 2005.[4]She admitted laundering between US$1 million and US$2.5 million and forfeited the shop’s roughly US$500,000 inventory, over US$198,000 from bank accounts and more than US$60,000 in cash.[4]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Sentences for the defendants who pleaded guilty were scheduled for March and April 2008, and no outcome was reported in the opened sources.
The prosecutors said some of those indicted were still fugitives, with no later arrest reported in the opened sources.
The prosecutors put the April 2007 seizure at more than 1,800 mature and more than 1,000 starter plants; this report uses 2,800 as the combined figure.
No photograph of the shop, the raids or the seized plants with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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