The Drug Enforcement Administration announced on Friday 28 August that it had found 14,500 marijuana plants growing in the Pike National Forest about 60 miles southwest of Denver, the largest outdoor marijuana-growing operation ever found in Colorado, with an estimated value of $5 million.[1] Federal, state and local officers seized the plants from the remote site in Jefferson County.[1][2]
Authorities learned of the grow from a passer-by and found plants four to six feet high tended by Mexican migrant workers recruited to work and harvest the site.[1] Two men associated with the site were tracked down and arrested the week before the announcement, though officials released almost no details about them.[1] The DEA linked the operation to Mexican drug cartels, saying growing on US public land had become attractive to them as tighter border security made large-scale smuggling harder.[1][3]
The Forest Service’s special agent in charge said the growers had cleared the site, left trash behind, and used chemicals that can seep into the watershed, alongside the danger to the public from encountering trafficking groups on public land.[3] Federal officials counted the seizure among about a dozen such public-land operations expected that year across Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming.[3]
