VISTA: New details emerge in huge pot bust
Federal agents say three old friends masterminded ring
By SARAH GORDON - Staff Writer | Thursday, April 17, 2008 5:53 PM PDT ∞
39 comment(s) Increase Font Decrease Font email this story print this story Things are quiet Thursday at a house on Oro Avo Drive in Vista where federal agents said they discovered thousands of marijuana plants earlier this week. (HAYNE PALMOUR IV / Staff photographer) VISTA ---- Neighbors in a peaceful hillside neighborhood said Thursday that, in hindsight, it seems obvious something strange was going on at a house where federal agents discovered 2,266 marijuana plants earlier this week.
While other homes on quiet Ora Avo Drive followed familiar patterns ---- such as working parents hustling out the door with their children every morning --- the single-story tan house on a half-acre lot was a mystery, said Joan Webb, 78, who lives across the street.
"You would very seldom see cars in the driveway," she said. "The only light you ever saw was a light on the porch."
According to federal agents, the Vista home contained the largest number of plants in a five-house indoor growing operation that was broken up Monday.
Agents raided homes in Vista, Fallbrook and Valley Center, arresting 13 men on suspicion of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and seizing a total of 6,669 plants. A plant yields about a pound of pot, putting the street value of the bust somewhere between $7 million to $27 million, depending on the quality of the plant, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration figures.
On Thursday, agents said the scheme was masterminded by three old friends who graduated from Vista High School decades ago.
Webb said she now believes she can pinpoint the start of the growing operation on Ora Avo.
About a year ago, she said, young men she didn't know gutted the house, tossing furniture and cabinetry into Dumpsters. At about the same time, they completed a wooden fence around the house and added a locked driveway gate.
Eileen Zeidler, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that bursts of carpentry and home remodels can be a sign of a budding indoor pot farm. She said that agents believe some of the houses raided Monday may have cultivated marijuana for several years.
All of the houses were located in residential neighborhoods and were single-family homes with almost every room fashioned for growing pot, Zeidler said. Only small living spaces were preserved in each, where people tending the crop apparently lived and slept.
Three men were arrested at the Vista house; two said they had been living there, according to the complaint.
Photos released by the Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday show the inside of the houses, with healthy green marijuana plants growing by the hundreds in white plastic bins on tables under yellow lamps.
Fans and ventilation units maintained greenhouse temperatures. All the pot farms busted in Monday had electrical systems rigged to bypass meters, Zeidler said.
Though larger crops can grow outdoors, indoor farms are attractive to criminals because the controlled environment can yield a perfect crop about three times a year, Zeidler said. A fully mature plant produces about a pound of pot with a street value of about $3,500 a pound, he said. The plants found this week were in all stages of maturity, she said, and the crop may have been worth tens of millions of dollars.
Many details of the growing operation remained murky Thursday.
Zeidler said that the three principal men suspected of operating the growing ring ---- Thomas Swift, 48, of San Macros, Kevin Kennedy, 48, of Vista and Robert Rocco, 48, of Vista ---- were old friends who had graduated from Vista High School together.
A woman reached at Kennedy's Vista residence said he had hired a lawyer but declined to say more.
Ziedler said that Swift and Kennedy were living prosperous lives and owned or controlled several properties, including the five houses raided Monday.
The three friends, along with most of the others arrested Monday, remain in federal custody in San Diego, U.S. Assistant Attorney Stewart Young said. If convicted, the men all face minimum sentences of 10 years in prison, he said.
Zeidler said agents were still actively investigating the ring and that more charges were possible
