Denver Police, Feds Raid Marijuana Grow Operations
DENVER (AP/CBS4) - Authorities seized as much as $1 million in cash and thousands of marijuana plants from several properties in the Denver area that were searched Tuesday as part of an investigation into an illegal pot operation based in Minnesota, a federal law enforcement official said.
The official was not authorized to publicly disclose details of the ongoing criminal investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Denver police officers and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration found large bags of cash during their search, the official said.
Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson gave no information about the case but said no arrests were made Tuesday. The Colorado attorney general's office was also involved but a spokeswoman declined to comment.
An employee from a neighboring business said he thought it was an illegal grow operation.
"The cops were raiding it, so you can only make that assumption," Ryan Jordan said.
There are 12 marijuana operations licensed by the state within two blocks of the raid.
"This whole area, you can just smell it," Jordan said.
The law enforcement official said the people involved in the operation came to Colorado from Minnesota, where recreational marijuana remains illegal.
It was unclear if Tuesday's investigation involved recreational or medical marijuana.
Federal authorities last November raided more than a dozen pot sites, including medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver and Boulder, confiscating piles of marijuana plants and cartons of cannabis-infused drinks and edibles. Four men were indicted on money laundering charges in that case, which was the biggest raid ever on the state's medical pot businesses.
(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
