Federal officials and sheriffs announced on 26 September 2012 that the summer-long Operation Mercury had seized more than 400,000 marijuana plants across Central Valley farmland since March.[1][2] The six-county effort by federal prosecutors and agents with sheriffs’ offices from Merced to Kern also brought more than 175 arrests and over 100 confiscated firearms.[1][2]
The announcement coincided with a morning raid on a 140-acre farm at Jensen and Sunnyside avenues, just outside southeast Fresno’s city limits, which Sheriff Margaret Mims called one of the biggest marijuana busts in Fresno County history.[1] Deputies with federal agents found thousands of marijuana plants, many ten feet tall, with about 50 acres of cannabis hidden among rows of peppers, tomatoes, bitter melons and corn.[1] Fifty people were detained, and deputies seized several weapons and several pounds of processed high-grade marijuana; no medical marijuana cards were posted in the fields.[1]
US Attorney Benjamin Wagner said the grows were commercial operations tied to Mexican cartels and sold across the country, not medical gardens.[1][2] Federal authorities said most Operation Mercury defendants were not Mexican nationals, and described the Fresno farm raided that day as a legitimate operation owned by people from Southeast Asia.[2] During the campaign, authorities had sent landowners letters giving them 14 days to eradicate marijuana on their property before facing land seizure.[2]
