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Oct. 23, 2023 - Epoch Times
39:54
Sheriff Reveals How Cartels Have Taken Over Rural California | Jeremiah LaRue
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So Siskiyou County is 6,200 square miles.
It's a very large county.
So if you look at the footprint of illegal marijuana in the county, it's unbelievable.
How many of these grows are out there?
It started small in about 2015 and before long it multiplied.
There's somewhere around 2,000 parcels, and so each greenhouse can have 500 to 1,000 plants, and you start adding this stuff up, it's in the billions of dollars, and billions with a B. Now, who is doing this growing?
People think that marijuana's legal, what's the big deal?
And to even say that is unreal.
If you see the pictures, if you see the video, it looks like a third-world country.
The crime is off the charts.
We have people getting murdered at marijuana grows.
People have been moving out of the community because of what is happening there.
My guest today is Jeremiah LaRue, Sheriff of Siskiyou County.
In a previous episode, we have covered how cartels are taking over land in this county and growing massive illegal marijuana.
Today, we'll dive deeper to find out what's happening in Northern California and why the illegal grows have been out of control.
So right now our marijuana eradication team is two people.
We'll go and eradicate and to get things cleaned up and do an investigation and then we'll fly a drone over the next day and there's people back at work.
So what's the response of the state?
There was so many loopholes in the law and we are suffering the consequences of those.
And when we ask for help, we're ignored.
It is an absolute failure.
I'm Siamai Karami.
Welcome to California Insider.
Jeremiah, it's great to have you on the show.
Welcome.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Now, you guys have an issue with the illegal growers, right?
Marijuana growers are there in your county, right?
What do you see there?
That's right.
We're inundated with illegal marijuana growers.
It started small in about 2015.
About 100 people came to Siskiyou County from Minnesota and some of the other states surrounding there, and they grew 99 plants.
It was like a medicinal grow.
And before long, just speeding up a little bit, it multiplied.
People came from all over California and also other parts of the country to set up these illegal grows.
And people think that marijuana is legal.
What's the big deal?
Well, the big deal is not necessarily the plant itself.
You know, I think often people will say that it's a war on cannabis.
And it is not a war on cannabis.
It's a war on the negative effects and consequences of cannabis cultivation when it's done illegally, such as environmental damage.
There's all kinds of chemicals and pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, rodenticides.
The list goes on.
A lot of these chemicals should not be in California at all.
And they're just going right into the soil, uncontrolled, unchecked.
Control it.
Any government is unable to control that.
And so that's what we're seeing in Siskiyou County.
And additionally, the crime is off the charts.
We have people getting murdered at marijuana groves, which is the most disturbing of anything.
What other crop in California has people show up and get murdered over a purchase?
Now, going to the residents, the neighbors of these...
So when these shootouts happen, do the neighbors, they hear them?
They become numb to it?
They live with it?
Or what are they doing?
Are they scared?
People are scared.
It's changed over the years because people have gotten a little bit desensitized from it.
And to even say that is unreal.
But people in the community report lots of different things.
Gunfire...
Screams.
I remember a report of somebody at a gas station that showed up bleeding from the torso, looked like knife wounds, and got hosed off at a gas station, put in a car, and driven off.
I mean, it's like a third world country.
That should not be happening here in America.
How does the residents feel about all of this?
People in the community know that this is not right.
And I will say this, that people have been moving out of the community because of what is happening there.
You know, we do everything that we can to be proactive and we've gone through some hard times with trying to find solutions to stopping all of this because, again, you know, as we mentioned earlier, the environmental damage and the animal abuse that we see Chemicals.
I mean, if you think about it collectively and holistically, what's going on at a grow site, it's way different than just a plant.
It's much more than that.
Between water theft, during a drought, I mean, we have all kinds of things working against us.
And the community is scared.
They do have confidence in law enforcement, in me and others, but They have lost confidence in the state to help us.
What about your staff or your team?
Have you guys felt threatened by this?
Absolutely.
I can think back of several different stories.
Actually, one involving me.
I was out In the marijuana gardens with another sergeant and we were out doing an investigation looking at a particular site and we got surrounded by about 200 people.
And there was lots of different thoughts that I had in my mind as to what they were there for.
You know, we have a lawful reason to be there.
We were on a street.
We weren't even in anyone's property.
But I had one individual come up to me.
I think he was the group spokesperson, if you will.
And he told me, you don't belong here.
You need to leave.
And I remember thinking, you know, like, where am I? Like, what is happening?
I mean, it just, it blew me away.
And I spoke to him a little bit about what I was doing there, but more people started showing up.
We were able to defuse the situation.
We got in our vehicles and we left.
But that's the presence, I guess, that we've encountered.
And you're the sheriff.
The sheriff.
And they told you you don't belong here.
Yeah.
The public property.
Right.
There's claims, I remember hearing afterwards, from somebody that they didn't know I was the sheriff.
But I'm a law enforcement officer, it wouldn't matter.
You don't do that to people.
But there's such an assertion of there is a right for them to be there doing what they're doing.
And this all ties in, because of the laws, there are no consequences.
You've probably heard this, the $500 fine for cultivating cannabis is a joke.
So if you catch them, the fine is $500, right?
Yeah.
$500 is probably what you would face if you face anything.
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And if it's even a huge grow?
Yeah, you could have seven plants or 7,000 plants.
And unless you can tie different pieces through other investigations to it, it's...
It's a meaningless statute at this point.
Why do they get murdered?
How does it work?
Well, people show up to purchase marijuana at the cultivation.
That's correct.
A lot of the growers used to grow and then they would drive great distances to deliver product.
And they were getting stopped by law enforcement all around the country.
And so a solution was to have people come to the sites and buy marijuana.
Well, what's happened is people show up and get in sort of a confrontation of some kind, where there's a disagreement over money or product or whatever, and there's a shootout.
Wow.
If you see the pictures, if you see the video, it looks like a third world country.
The quality of life out there in the marijuana grows is substandard.
People are living in unpermitted structures that are made out of plywood.
They do not contain proper electrical.
They don't contain proper fuel that comes into the building.
The heating is an issue.
We've had multiple people every year die from carbon monoxide poisoning because the standards are not met.
And then we have sewage problems because a lot of these sites, they don't get the proper permits to have septic.
So they dig holes in the ground and they just dump their sewer directly into the ground.
And then they bury it when it gets full and dig another hole.
And no one should live like that in America.
And no one should live like that in California for sure.
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Now let's go back to the interview.
Now, are these people forced to be in these conditions?
Have you guys seen evidence of that?
So, another challenge and a great question is, are these people willingly there?
When we talk to people in the field, they, first off, don't like to talk to us.
There's misinformation that's spread out in these marijuana grows that law enforcement, if you talk to them, they're going to take you away from your family.
They're going to lock you up.
You're never going to see the light of day.
And we've heard these comments out in the field.
And so that spreads around.
So we're often not given the most honest information when we're out there talking to folks.
But what you will see and what you will kind of get a sense of Is that there are people there willingly, but there's also people there that are not willingly there.
And I can point to a story.
I received a letter in the mail, and this was probably a year ago.
And the letter was written from somebody who, quote, escaped from the marijuana grows in Siskiyou County.
And I read through the letter, and it was a female that had been promised a life of prosperity, of free living conditions, that she could earn quite a bit of money, and she'd be set.
She wouldn't have to worry about anything.
What she wrote in the letter is that the people that she had been working for were making her do things that she didn't want to do.
And they actually told her that if she didn't fulfill her obligation of working in the grows, that she would be killed and her entire family would be killed.
Wow.
That's essentially like taking somebody as a slave, in a sense.
That's right.
We've heard the term narco-slavery used recently, and it's exactly what's happening.
You mentioned the size.
For our audience to understand, how many of these grows are out there?
So Siskiyou County is 6,200 square miles.
It's a very large county.
There's about 45,000 people there.
And of the 6,200 square miles, most of it is Forest Service land.
I believe it's somewhere around 68% is Forest Service land.
So the private property that's available, there are certain parts of the county where there's some undesirable property.
And that is where our marijuana grow is basically concentrated because it was land that nobody wanted to purchase for so long.
And it's volcanic.
And so if you were to look on a map and look at the videos that we have, you would see there's somewhere around 2,000 parcels And a parcel, you know, can be 2.5 acres or it can be 600 acres.
But there's about 2,000 parcels.
Now, if you start breaking it down even further, each parcel can have one greenhouse or two.
There's some that have had upwards of 387 on one parcel.
Each greenhouse can have 500 to 1,000 plants, and they also have outdoor grows that are outside of the greenhouses.
So if you look at the footprint of illegal marijuana in the county, it's unbelievable, the scale that we're talking about.
Have you guys thought about how much this is in dollars?
We've come up with some calculations what it looks like dollar-wise.
Yeah, it's hard because of the different factors that are out there, the different prices of marijuana, but you can kind of figure a little bit about it.
I mean, if you take a typical greenhouse that has a thousand plants, Those marijuana plants could produce, we'll say conservatively, a pound, which there's going to be a lot more than that.
So if you can get a thousand or two thousand dollars a pound, we can see how the numbers start adding up pretty quick for just one greenhouse.
And we estimate there's probably about five thousand greenhouses in the county that are potentially cultivating upwards of three times a year.
Plus, there's outdoor grows.
So, if you get out your calculator and you start adding this stuff up, it's in the billions of dollars, and billions with a B. Now, who is doing this growing?
Because it looks like a huge industry.
Is it organized, or is it smaller players?
It's very well organized in our county.
So if you drive through, and I encourage you or anybody else to come take a look at it, you'll see that when you start getting close to the marijuana grows, there are road guards set up.
That alert people to our presence or anyone else that may be in the area that doesn't belong there, is what we've been told.
We're told that we don't belong there.
There's visitors in our community that go for a drive that are stopped in roadways and told to leave.
When you think about that, I mean this is California.
This is 2023.
And we have that kind of an element in our community where people are literally getting stopped by residents, visitors, you name it.
These people are often armed.
So what do they tell them?
Turn around and go and don't come back to this area?
Yeah, just you're not wanted here.
And so going back to your question about who are these folks, there's some small-scale folks that are just growing, I would say, independently.
But then there are folks that, on a large scale, That have a very well organized structure, like I mentioned with the road guards, but they also contribute financially to one another to set up a system of security out there.
And we've been told that there's like a $500 buy-in to this organization.
And everybody has a job.
So it might be somebody takes a turn watching a particular road, and if they see law enforcement or somebody that might be suspicious, they'll radio in to other people or call in.
And this is very evident if we go out and do our eradication.
You will see a dust cloud of vehicles leaving the moment somebody sees us coming, because they're all connected.
They're all working together.
So they have people watching, and then they're alerting each other that you guys are coming, and they've created a network.
Essentially, they've created an association, from what it looks like.
That's correct.
And they pay into this to protect each other.
Is that how...
Yes, that's what we've been told.
We've talked to people and they say basically you have to pay in and then you are also guaranteed some security as well.
Because this is a lot bigger than just law enforcement trying to eradicate.
We have people that show up from out of state and they come to rob these folks.
And it's to a place where people hear gunfire out in the groves, or in the neighboring communities, and they don't even report it anymore.
Wow.
And it's unacceptable.
So there are other people coming, trying to rob these places with guns, and they get into fights?
All the time.
And I don't know how anybody gets used to that, but...
We've tried a lot of different things to bring awareness to this issue and to restore quality of life for the community.
And the interesting thing also is, as a sheriff, I have a duty to protect everybody.
That's something that I swore an oath to.
And that includes even the criminals that are capitalizing on this.
And what's sad and very disturbing is that we have growers that are getting murdered by each other and by people that come and rob people.
You know, that's disturbing to me.
I don't want a community like that.
And I need to be able to protect people, even if they're there for illegal reasons.
And the bigger picture that I can't quite understand is how the legislature Or state government, knowing that people are getting murdered over a rollout of legalizing cannabis, how they can remain silent on that.
And how many...
How does your staff...
So you have 2,000 of these.
It looks like if you catch one, they can start another one somewhere else.
Is that how it works?
Like you get one, and then there's another one that comes out?
Or are they constantly making new ones?
Yeah, it's terrible.
So I have a video of this.
You can see people cultivating after...
So we go and eradicate.
And the next day they're cultivating right where we just eradicated.
Same place?
Same place.
That's why the laws are written so poorly.
There's no impact.
So you catch them again, you give them a $500 ticket?
Is that...
Yeah.
That would be pretty much exactly what would happen.
And people are willing to risk that because it's so lucrative.
There's so much money in it.
And...
Like I said, they will just replant the next day.
And so we call it whack-a-mole because that's literally how it feels.
We'll go and eradicate.
We'll spend a lot of time and effort to do the right thing and to get things cleaned up and do an investigation.
And then we'll fly a drone over the next day and there's people back at work.
And you can recite them all day, but like I said, there's no teeth in the law.
They make more money than the 500, right?
Right.
Well, that's the thing, too.
I mean, and I think the legislature needs to be aware of that.
If you have a small fine...
The way that can be viewed is it's pay to play.
It's just the cost.
It's just the collateral.
Cost of doing business.
Yeah.
Now, is this why?
So for even Mexican cartels, it makes sense to come and grow here, right?
Then do it there.
They don't have to cross the border.
Is that...
Yeah, so we have, there's kind of a couple different things happening, at least in my community.
We have a lot of private groves, we call them, that are on private property, which are primarily Asian.
And out in the public lands, there's a lot of Hispanic, like you're mentioning, and directed, you know, at cartel from Mexico.
And so, two different dynamics of public land and private land.
But you're right, I think it's all about If we're talking about Mexico specifically, I mean the money and of course the safety of being up here.
There's protections in America.
Even if there's punishment, it's going to be far less than trying to do that down in Mexico.
And so I think that you see this influx because, again, it's worth it.
It's worth the risk.
How many deputies do you have dealing with this?
Yeah, so right now our marijuana eradication team is two people.
Wow.
It's been larger in years past, but budgetary concerns, low staffing, and you know law enforcement is going through a tough time nationwide with staffing shortages and You know, pay and safety.
I mean, there's all these different concerns why people choose either to go into law enforcement or to do a different occupation.
And so right now it's two people.
And you've tried to reach out through the legislature, through different channels?
Yes.
That's very complicated.
I have.
I've had many different meetings with different folks at the state.
And I know that there is a...
There's been a new willingness to assist.
But, you know, I could say a couple of things.
I mean, honestly, it's better late than never, but it has been a huge disappointment.
Because again, you know, we are asking for help to combat a problem that was created by the legislature.
The rollout was an absolute failure.
Of legalizing cannabis.
There was so many loopholes in the law, and we are suffering the consequences of those.
And when we ask for help, we're ignored.
And as I said earlier, when people are getting murdered over something that was through the legislation, and I don't say that to sensationalize it, but that is the reality of it.
People need to be held accountable for that.
And we're doing everything we can on a local level to address that.
But we cannot get assistance that we need from the state.
We need tools.
We need funding.
Because it is an absolute failure.
So what's their response from the state?
Silence.
I've reached out to different state offices and they agree that there is a problem.
A lot of the state workers, they're great state workers, and we're talking about line staff and people that run organizations, they don't have the tools either to even lend a hand to us.
I've talked to state organizations that tell us that they have only a few people working, almost just like I do.
And so even the state organizations have not been properly supplied the resources that they need to help us.
And there's a fix.
I don't think it's that hard.
It's getting the right people in the room that care enough to start penciling stuff out.
And let's get something written down.
Let's get it through the legislation that is bipartisan.
You know, I think everyone would agree that we want California to be beautiful.
We don't want the lands destroyed by anything.
And we need to fix the environmental damage that is ongoing.
And we have to have laws that deter people from doing things.
That's been the biggest disappointment.
This $500 fine, what is that going to do?
It's almost comical.
And it's not that we need harsh legislation to lock people up.
Sometimes people view it that way, is that we get some hard laws and that we're going to lock people and send them to prison for marijuana cultivation.
That's not, I don't think, what anyone's asking.
But sometimes you need laws on the books that have harsh penalties to deter people.
Because it looks like other states around us that have legalized cannabis, they have much more stricter laws.
So if you grow above a certain amount, then the penalty is much bigger and you could face going to jail.
I agree.
Even in Oregon, I've looked at some of their legislation.
They actually have some good legislation about water use, where if people are using water for illegal cannabis, there's penalties.
One other thing, the state of California likes to have administrative fines versus misdemeanors or felonies.
The problem is we've gotten back to the system.
When you have so much money in an industry, you're just paying to play.
What are these fines going to do?
They don't deter people.
They would deter me or you, but if you are part of the criminal industry, Fines aren't going to matter.
And you're making billions of dollars a year.
You can't spend a few million dollars paying fines.
Well, right.
So it really just turns into fees to do illegal activity.
And so I think Siskiyou County, but also a lot of California, I think, again, just feels abandoned by the failed rollout, but then it was thrown onto the counties to deal with.
And then the state just stepped back.
And they're just watching it play out.
Do you feel like you're on your own, alone in this?
I do.
I do.
And I think I don't want to be alone in this.
I mean, I've asked for help.
And I know, like I mentioned, I think there's been a little bit of a change at the state.
I know there's a creation of a new task force by the governor's office, which is encouraging.
And again, better late than never.
I could not look at the past and just say, what a mess.
Let's move forward.
That's what I'm looking forward to.
We don't get any time with the governor.
We don't get time with the governor's office to talk about just realistic things that are happening.
I think at times there's maybe a sense that law enforcement might want to be very aggressive or very angry at the state for what has happened.
I don't.
I want to just start over.
I want to have a good relationship with people that are in positions of power that can make change to help my community and ultimately to help California because the trajectory that it's going, nobody wants to see where that ends.
Are you afraid for your own safety?
You've been pretty vocal about this, right?
Do you feel that there is some risk you are taking, right?
Yeah, I've always felt that in law enforcement.
There's been moments, as I described earlier, where there's a sense of the potential that there's something bad that's going to happen to you.
The way that I view that is, I have to do what's right.
Because if nobody's going to stand up, that's where we're going to fail.
And so I want to be an ambassador for my people in a sense, but I need to get buy-in from others.
How do you keep going?
Because it looks like you're alone in this big, complicated war and you don't have the tools to hold people accountable.
How do you keep going?
Well, honestly, God has been a big part of that.
Because, you know, the way I see it, my authority comes from Him.
And I believe in what I'm doing.
I believe in justice.
And I'm just going to be faithful to that and faithful to my service and my calling.
And even though it gets tough, I think that that's...
That's okay.
That's when you just rise up and just meet the challenges where they are and you just keep going.
The state of California has great law enforcement leaders.
The sheriff's offices are amazing that I work with frequently.
And I'm thankful for them and their friendship.
And I know that we have the right people.
We just need to get the state to see And acknowledge the problem and to work with us to move forward.
If the lawmakers were to side with you and say, okay, this is the most important thing, we have to solve it, what can they do?
Yeah, so if you look at an illegal cultivation site holistically, not just about plant counts, but you look at the chemicals that are being used, banned chemicals, illegal pesticides, and you look at the whole structure of it, I think that if there's legislation that looks at that, the total picture, and makes those sites that meet the requirements...
A felony.
I think that would prevent a lot of it.
Again, it's not about locking everybody up.
It's about deterring people.
So, I also think that if you are operating, you know, over a certain plant count, I think that should be a felony.
Because, again, the state of California allows for six plants for personal use.
And counties can add on to that and do different things.
But if you have 10,000 plants or 1,000 plants, you're operating a commercial business.
And there needs to be harsh penalties for that.
Because, again, what comes with that are these illegal chemicals, pesticides, and all those things.
Slave labor, like.
Right.
And so, again, you're just paying your fees to the state with $500.
And I think the thought was, and I can't speak totally for the legislature, but I think the thought was, if there's a legal way to do this, people will do the right thing.
But we all know that there's always going to be a criminal piece to that that doesn't do the right thing.
That's with any laws.
So you have to have something strict to stop that.
And so there needs to be a fresh look involving law enforcement to work like a workshop with the legislature to actually look at the problems.
And identify where the dividing line is between misdemeanor and felony.
And then have the advocacy groups also agree with that.
That we don't want to see the chemicals into the ground anymore.
Like that's the big one.
I can't stop talking about that.
Because it's disgusting if you go out to the sites and you see what's being put into the ground.
And there are no consequences.
Do you have any other thoughts for our audience?
I think that people need to open their eyes to things that are occurring locally.
I think that, I was thinking about this actually traveling down here, is that there's so much going on.
It's so busy.
And there's a million different things happening worldwide that sometimes you forget about what's going on locally.
And when certain things like whether it's illegal cannabis activity or fentanyl problems or crime rates are up, They're occurring small scale, but also they're growing in large scale.
And I think people need to be in tune with that and try to find sources that provide unbiased reporting about it.
Because, like this show, you know, this stuff's going on and people aren't aware of it.
That needs to get out.
And people need to, again, hold people in power accountable, whether that's me or people at the state level or nationally.
We have to have that checks and balances because otherwise, Agendas start running amok.
And I think that the American people need to be in tune to what's happening locally and hold people accountable.
Is there a way our audience can help your county?
Well, the biggest thing that I could ask for would be to try to get advocacy groups to partner with us or show up.
So one of the things that's been most surprising, when I've talked about this before, where we have animal abuse, we have chemicals that are going into the groundwater, It's been silence from advocacy groups.
And if America, of course, but if California is environmentally conscious, I would expect those people to be reaching out.
And I have not heard from anyone.
So I would ask if anybody knows or can help that we get the right people to align with us.
And again, this is not a battle against cannabis.
There's plenty of ways to grow cannabis legally.
And even in Siskiyou County, you can grow it legally.
But for those that deviate from that and do it illegally, you know, there needs to be consequences.
Jeremiah LaRue, Sheriff of Siskiyou County, it was great to have you on California Insider.
Thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.
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