(NewsNation) — The Merced County Sheriff’s Office‘s Sheriff Enforcement Team seized thousands of pounds of illegal marijuana and rescued human trafficking victims in one of the largest illegal growing operation busts in its history last week.
Upon arriving, investigators found 60 people working at the operation and later discovered those workers were in fact victims of human trafficking.
Authorities told NewsNation that these individuals arrived at the operation several days before the bust and were promised good-paying jobs and a place to live. However, they were forced to process marijuana while living in poor conditions in order to pay back the individuals who smuggled them illegally across the border.
“The tragedy of this, besides the illegal growing and processing, is the fact that there are 60 people here that have been promised jobs, brought across the border on the promise of making money each day,” Merced County Sheriff Vernon Warnke said. “These folks are indentured, they owe money and yet, here we are at an illegal processing center and they are scared to death.”
Warnke described the human smuggling operation investigators uncovered, saying that 60 lives have been upturned because of this.
The issue of illegal marijuana grow operations is plaguing the entire state of California and is often connected to high levels of water theft, human trafficking and an increase in violence in surrounding towns.
In 2016, California legalized marijuana and downgraded a felony charge for growing illegally to a misdemeanor. These changes opened the floodgates for organized crime to take over the black market marijuana market.
Organized crime groups have been operating these illegal grow operations in the deserts of southern California, forcing residents to move away.
Locals say it’s not the marijuana they’re concerned about, but the crime and intimidation that come along with the illegal activity.
“My friend was told not to drive, not to go up there anymore,” a resident said, claiming that the friend was then shown a picture of a dead man who tried to enter the area.
