12-20-2007, 07:32 AM
Grow house found in airplane hangar
Posted: Dec 19, 2007 11:33 PM EST
SARASOTA COUNTY - Another marijuana grow house bust Wednesday night, this one in eastern Sarasota County inside an aircraft hangar.
Sheriff's deputies are calling it an expensive and elaborate set up.
The bust happened at a home in the Hidden River community on the western border of Myakka River State Park. It's a fly-in neighborhood with its own airstrip, and many homes have their own hangars to store airplanes...or in this case grow marijuana.
The marijuana growing in the house had a street value of $500,000. The Sarasota County Sheriff's Special Investigation Bureau made the bust Wednesday evening.
Captain Jeff Bell told us this isn't an amateur operation. "It's obviously very well constructed. It has all the same elements that we find in a majority of these particular type of operations."
A row of electrical ballasts helped power the growing lamps.
Investigators say they believe that two people arrested Wednesday night work for a drug operation out of south Florida.
Several months of undercover work went into the bust. Tips from folks in the area helped as well.
Captain Bell tells us that they also busted another house Tuesday night on Old Ranch Road near Myakka River State Park. They believe that the two busts are connected. Bell says that many drug operations are being pushed out of the south Florida area into rural areas of the state, like the area that these two houses are located in.
Posted: Dec 19, 2007 11:33 PM EST
SARASOTA COUNTY - Another marijuana grow house bust Wednesday night, this one in eastern Sarasota County inside an aircraft hangar.
Sheriff's deputies are calling it an expensive and elaborate set up.
The bust happened at a home in the Hidden River community on the western border of Myakka River State Park. It's a fly-in neighborhood with its own airstrip, and many homes have their own hangars to store airplanes...or in this case grow marijuana.
The marijuana growing in the house had a street value of $500,000. The Sarasota County Sheriff's Special Investigation Bureau made the bust Wednesday evening.
Captain Jeff Bell told us this isn't an amateur operation. "It's obviously very well constructed. It has all the same elements that we find in a majority of these particular type of operations."
A row of electrical ballasts helped power the growing lamps.
Investigators say they believe that two people arrested Wednesday night work for a drug operation out of south Florida.
Several months of undercover work went into the bust. Tips from folks in the area helped as well.
Captain Bell tells us that they also busted another house Tuesday night on Old Ranch Road near Myakka River State Park. They believe that the two busts are connected. Bell says that many drug operations are being pushed out of the south Florida area into rural areas of the state, like the area that these two houses are located in.