Seven charged over 3,700-plant grow ring in King and Pierce counties
Federal agents and King County deputies served warrants on a dozen homes across King and Pierce counties on 22 and 23 January 2007, arresting seven people charged with conspiring to manufacture marijuana and seizing more than 3,700 plants and about US$275,000 in cash.
🇺🇸 King and Pierce counties, Washington · Washington, United States
Seven people were arrested and charged in federal court in Seattle with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana after officers served search warrants on about a dozen homes across King and Pierce counties on 22 and 23 January 2007.[1]The Drug Enforcement Administration, the King County Sheriff’s Department and the Internal Revenue Service ran the investigation into what prosecutors called a Canadian-based organization growing marijuana house by house for profit.[1][2]
Officers seized more than 3,700 plants worth several million dollars, about US$275,000 in cash, cars and jewellery.[1]Itemised finds included 623 plants and a US$6,000 diamond bracelet in Puyallup, 462 plants and US$191,000 in cash in a car linked to a Renton address, and hundreds of plants each in Federal Way, Auburn and a second Renton home.[1]Agents said the houses diverted power on a scale that cost utilities and taxpayers heavily, and neighbours reportedly thanked them as the grows were dismantled.[1]
Prosecutors later said the January arrests grew out of the wider “This Bud’s Pho You” investigation, in which 26 people were convicted, and that the organisation moved marijuana through a Kent restaurant used to launder proceeds.[3]Court papers described the seven as Vietnamese-American suspects seen tending each other’s grows, and investigators tied their methods to British Columbia grow operations.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The prosecutors put the seizure above 3,700 plants and about US$275,000 cash, while the Canadian press reported 4,991 plants worth US$5 million and over US$250,000 cash; this report uses the prosecutors' figures.
The September 2007 release describes eight arrests in January 2007 while the January release charges seven people; this report uses the seven charged.
Results from three of the searched addresses were not yet public when the charges were announced, and no later outcome was reported in the opened sources.
No photograph of the raids, the suspects or the seized plants with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
Cameron County deputies arrested Farid Sadek Khouane after a search warrant at his home on Varela Court in Brownsville. Deputies reported seizing just over 13 ounces of marijuana, 49 THC pens, suspected cocaine, three weapons and cash.
SWAT operators and the Border Belt Drug Task Force searched a home on Stanton Road southeast of Maxton, North Carolina, on 12 November 2026 and seized cocaine, Suboxone strips, prescription pills, marijuana and a firearm. Tommy Dale Barnes, 40, surrendered the next day and faces charges including possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, held on a $1.1 million secured bond.
Chad Andrew Chandler, 42, of Rockmart was arrested after allegedly fleeing a Polk County officer on New Prospect Road and being found with marijuana. He faces marijuana possession and other charges including crossing the guard line with drugs, giving false information, obstruction and a bicycle equipment violation.
Florence County sheriff's deputies, with the SWAT team, executed a search warrant on an Ossie Lane home in Florence after an undercover operation and arrested Jack Randall Newsome, 48. He faces charges including distribution and trafficking in methamphetamine, possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) and flunitrazepam, and is held at the county detention centre awaiting a bond hearing.
