Chicago Police Cut, Burn $4 Million Worth of Pot

CHICAGO --

Cook County Forest Preserve police and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration cut down and burned all of the plants found in 11 illegally cultivated cannabis fields in Cook County forest preserves. The marijuana had an estimated street value of $4 million.

Officials announced charges against two 23-year-old Mexican immigrants in what DEA officials called an elaborate, sophisticated cultivation scheme, according to a release from forest preserve police. Bernardo Rangel and Jose Verra were arrested in connection with the scheme.

Rangel and Verra were each charged July 11 with cultivating marijuana over 50 plants and criminal damage to land, both Class 2 felonies, and criminal trespass, a misdemeanor. Bond was set at $40,000 each, the release said. Rangel, who possessed a permanent resident identification card, was released after posting bond. Verra, who is undocumented, remains at the Cook County Jail.

The arrests came as part of an ongoing investigation by the Cook County Forest Preserve Cannabis Eradication Program.

On June 10, an intern with McGraw Wildlife Research, conducting a study in partnership with the Forest Preserve District, went to retrieve a camera from the woods and encountered three Hispanic men using a sump pump, generator and water hose to pump water from a pond near Crabtree Nature Preserve in Barrington, the release said.

The volunteer questioned the men, who initially claimed to be employed with the Village of Barrington but later fled. The volunteer contacted the forest preserve police, who later followed the hose back to a cultivated cannabis field.

On June 16, CCFP police and DEA agents returned to the field and expanded their search, locating several more cultivated fields, containing about 3,000 plants. Police also find an encampment with a tent and three cots, food supplies, fertilizer bags and an area for cooking and showering. An underground bunker was found about 30 yards away.

While conducting aerial surveillance on June 29, police located several more fields, bringing the amount of cultivated cannabis to between 15,000 and 20,000 pounds.

Officers inspecting a field found Rangel and Verra wearing camouflage clothing and sleeping in a tent in another encampment in a heavily brushed area in another cultivated cannabis field, the release said.

Tuesday, officials from more than 50 law enforcement agencies are cutting and burning all of the plants, the release said.

“This particular marijuana operation shows the sophistication of some traffickers. Instead of bringing marijuana across the border, this drug organization set up shop in the United States on public property, in the forest preserves, where it was being cultivated for harvest and illegal distribution, Gary Olenkiewicz, special agent in charge for the DEA Chicago Field Division, said in the release.

Copyright 2007, Sun-Times News Group

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