A series of joint operations by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and several other agencies raked in nearly $30 million worth of illegal marijuana plants from several sites in the county’s backcountry.
Twenty-five officers from the Sheriff’s Department, California Department of Justice, National Forest Service, and county Search and Rescue cleared out multiple grow sites on National Forest land, removing trash, tents, equipment and almost 12,000 adult cannabis plants, along with 38 pounds of processed marijuana.
Deputies found the mother lode southwest of Cuyama in the Sierra Madre Road area, discovering a large grow site containing approximately 10,500 adult plants. This cash crop provided the bulk of the operation’s numbers — in total, law enforcement secured 11,857 mature plants that DEA officials said were worth up to $29,642,500 on the street.