# Grow houses sprout locally



## FruityBud (Feb 11, 2008)

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Mariceli Acevedo wanted her husband to get a job. His inability to find steady work was straining their marriage.

[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Juan Torres found one.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]He dressed for work and left their middle-class neighborhood of South West 97th Court in Miami every day.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]His job: Tending marijuana grow houses 180 miles away in Melbourne.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Torres' new occupation didn't register even a blip on police radar screens. That changed Dec. 12 when Torres killed 24-year-old Omar Garcia, his cousin-in-law by marriage, near Turtle Mound Road. He then drove to Lake Washington Road, where he shot dead Elieser S. Alfonso, his 36-year-old brother-in-law, before turning the gun on himself.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Investigators can't say for sure whether it was problems within the drug business or just bad blood in the Cuban-American family that sparked Torres' deadly shooting spree. But when guns were fired that December morning, it exposed a clandestine marijuana grow network in the middle of a quaint rural subdivision.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Grow houses were found in both locations. Within days, investigators found four more grow houses in the Melbourne area linked to the clan.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The men's wives, who live together in Miami, told Brevard County Sheriff's Agent Carlos Reyes they were unaware what business their husbands were involved in.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"Without this incident, we might have never known about them," Reyes said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]But Brevard County investigators know now.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]They also know that Torres, Garcia and Alfonso represented a kind of criminal enterprise adept at avoiding detection and increasingly likely to set up operations in places like Melbourne.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Agents said they're seeking three more people, all thought to be from South Florida, who may be connected to the Melbourne grow operations.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"We are seeing a trend of Cubans branching out throughout the state to establish grow-house operations," said Special Agent Jeannette Moran, who works at the Miami office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]*Stealth is wealth*[/FONT]

    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Goats and horses. Five Chihuahuas. Even a canary. And Christmas lights.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]These were all signs of typical, domesticated life in two leafy Melbourne neighborhoods where houses are built on spacious lots, tucked away from busy roadways and curious neighbors.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yet for Torres, Garcia and Alfonso, it was an act.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In contrast to the outward signs of domesticity, inside their living arrangements were frugal, Reyes said. There was little food in their refrigerators and meager furnishings.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]And they were only "home" a few times a week when they traveled up from Miami to tend their weed gardens.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"They establish themselves as very good neighbors," Cmdr. Doug Waller of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said. "And they pay their bills on time."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Grow houses consume enormous amounts of electricity because they use hydroponic lights usually installed in greenhouses, air handlers and machines that produce carbon dioxide.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]To avoid any suspicion about high electricity consumption, the operation tapped power lines illegally.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The grow houses used artificial nutrients in place of soil, and lights around the clock, leading to rapid growth of the plants that were harvested three to four times a year, investigators said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Waller said the marijuana grown locally had very high THC content, the chemical that gives the drug its mind-altering characteristics. Each harvest could have yielded as much as 40 to 50 pounds, he said*, *netting between $4,000 to $6,000 a pound.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Once the marijuana was harvested, agents believe it was transported back to Miami, usually in cars.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"There is no sign of their use and distribution in Brevard," Waller said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"There was nothing potentially to bring law enforcement into their houses. They had no connection to the county except for the operations at the residences."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]And their records were clean: Torres, Garcia and Acevedo did not have criminal records. And there were no reports of police visits to the homes.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]*Outsourcing*[/FONT]

    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In the past year, 13 grow houses in the county were reported to the DEA. But many more have been discovered in Brevard, including at least 12 discovered by Palm Bay police in 2007 and another 13 by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Other police agencies have also found grow houses.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Statewide, law enforcement agencies busted 730 grow houses from January to November 2007. Nearly half were in Miami-Dade County.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Brevard County is an ideal setting for grow house operations. It's rural, there's less heat from law enforcement agencies and there are fewer rival groups, investigators said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In South Florida, groups prey on each other and rob their competitors. It's easy because robberies like these are never reported, Reyes said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]A November incident in Grant-Valkaria, where one gang tried to hit the grow-house operation of another, is more the norm in Miami. Four men have been charged with first-degree felony murder, home invasion robbery and kidnapping with a firearm for the Nov. 19 incident where Jose Corcho, 43, was found slain at his Grant-Valkaria residence, which also housed a marijuana grow-house operation.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In June, the DEA started a database about grow houses and how they might be connected to one another.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]"It is an effort to tie in all the information to see if one grow house is connected to another," Moran said. "The aim is to take down an entire organization instead of taking down one grow house at a time."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In the weeks since the December incident, additional grow houses have been busted in Rockledge and Merritt Island, where investigators found more evidence of people covering up their criminal enterprise with the appearance of quiet domesticity.[/FONT]

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080211/NEWS01/802110328[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
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