An indoor grow operation just outside downtown Oklahoma City turned into a major bust on Friday, when agents with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force raided two locations and seized nearly 3,200 marijuana plants along with about 440 pounds of processed marijuana. Five people were taken into custody in the coordinated sweep, and investigators say they found multiple firearms at both spots. Officials believe the grow was feeding the black market instead of operating under Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program.
According to KOKH, agents executed warrants at a downtown facility identified in records as CN Solutions LLC and at a northwest Oklahoma City residence tied to the business. Investigators arrested one person at the commercial site and four at the home. KOKH reported that agents seized six firearms at the business and two more at the residence.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond cast the operation as one more step in a broader effort to squeeze illegal grows out of the state. “We are finding and shutting down illegal grow operations all across Oklahoma from rural farm areas to urban facilities; we will continue aggressively pursuing these criminal organizations until they are driven out of Oklahoma,” he said, as quoted by the station. Investigators told KOKH the downtown site was believed to be operating without proper licensing and to have been distributing marijuana on the black market.
Part of a statewide crackdown
The Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force has been busy with similar large-scale raids in recent months, targeting unlicensed operations and alleged straw-ownership schemes that aim to skirt state rules. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has outlined multi-agency actions this spring that resulted in the seizure of tens of thousands of plants and hundreds of pounds of processed marijuana across Oklahoma.
Federal investigations add pressure
Federal law enforcement is also turning up the heat on networks tied to black-market marijuana production. In April, a Justice Department news release detailed an indictment that, according to prosecutors, came after searches across the country turned up roughly 61,000 marijuana plants and about 550 kilograms of processed product. That case illustrates how local raids in Oklahoma can connect to much larger national investigations…