Multi-million dollar pot farm busted in Tonto National Forest

Lindsey Collom
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 3, 2006 06:11 PM

TONTO NATIONAL FOREST - Authorities say a woman scattering her mother's ashes in Tonto National Forest stumbled upon what could be the largest marijuana farm ever found in Arizona.

More than 30,000 marijuana plants cover the slopes of a canyon about 20 miles east of Payson. The crop was growing on what investigators said was a 2-year-old operation hidden beneath a canopy of thorny locust trees.

DPS officials said this week's crop was worth at least $30 million in the Arizona market, perhaps double or triple in central and eastern parts of the country. If the plants had made it to harvest, which was still five to seven weeks out, the yield would have been distributed to metropolitan cities nationwide, Bryce said.

The workers were long gone Thursday, but traces of them remained. A shrine of dried flowers and pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe sat beneath a locust tree close to the crop. The place where they held camp a short climb away was littered with food and trash. There was an abandoned tent and sleeping bags, and several black socks hung from a branch next to a pair of jeans.

Local authorities have arrested two people this year in connection with growing operations. Those men, both undocumented immigrants, were detained last month during a marijuana field raid near Skunk Creek north of Phoenix. They told authorities they tended to the 8,000 plants as repayment for being smuggled across the border, according to DPS.

Similarly, 13 suspects arrested last year were also in the country illegally.