Pubdate: Mon, 13 September 1999 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Author: Stephen Green, Scripps-McClatchy Western Service POT-BUSTING TEAM FINDS WELL-ORGANIZED GARDENS DRUGS: Mexican Cartels Are Taking Over Marijuana Fields,Lockyer Says. Morgan Hill - As the helicopter clattered down a narrow canyon, Special Agent Sonya Barna gestured toward a break in the forest canopy where the ground cover shimmered with hues of blue and green. "When direct sun hits a marijuana garden, you see that blue-green iridescence?" she asked. "It's a sure sign there's a garden there." Barna would soon be on the ground, leading the 144th raid this year by the state Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or Camp. Agents, in the field only since Aug. 2, had confiscated nearly 100,000 plants as of last week. The Attorney General's Office estimated their street value at $391 million. With a harvest season extending well into October in some parts of the state, CAMP seems to be on pace to eradicate more than the 136,000 plants taken out last year. Gil Van Attenhoven, CAMP's operation s commander, said his agents are finding bigger gardens on neatly terraced hillsides with sophisticated drip-irrigation systems. "With the exception of Humboldt County where we're still dealing with small growers, in much of the state it's not just a couple of guys out there growing marijuana any more," Van Attenhoven said. "It's Mexican-national drug organizations. These are commercial operations." Attorney General Bill Lockyer said drug cartels have seized control of much of California's methamphetamine production. Now they're moving into marijuana cultivation with the same brutal efficiency, he said. Cartels recruit poor Mexicans and install them in forested areas of California with the equipment they need, investigators have found. If growers bring in a crop, they get a big cash bonus. The previous week CAMP confiscated more than 10,000 plants in another Santa Clara County raid. The growers got away, but the groceries they left behind included the beans, tortillas and homemade chorizo that are staples for Mexico's poor. It was an exception when federal agents arrested two Mexican nationals Sept. 7 in a large garden near Highland in the San Bernardino National Forest. Usually, the growers are gone by the time a raiding party arrives. In 17 years of CAMP operations, agents have never exchanged gun fire with growers. Some helicopters have been fired upon and Van Attenhoven's agents also frequently find assault rifles and other firearms in growers' camps. And booby traps aren't uncommon. Agents find trip wires rigged to a rat trap with a shotgun shell or pits covered with foliage. In Fresno County last month, they confiscated a grenade with a trip wire strapped to a propane tank. On the North Coast, agents have encountered fishing line with hooks dangling at eye level. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D