Law enforcement agents uncovered fields of marijuana plants in east-central Minnesota worth $4.1 million during one of state's biggest drug busts in years.
Busloads of agents seized more than 5,500 marijuana plants Wednesday in a predawn raid of land east of Hinckley, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"The focus of today's effort was to locate, document and destroy these plants before they could be harvested and enter the illicit drug market," Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones said in a statement. Officers from local, state and federal agencies executed the federal search warrant.
A helicopter flew overhead as agents secured a large perimeter and descended upon their target, according to a Pine City radio reporter who attended a preraid strategy session by authorities and witnessed the seizure.
"They never found any suspects," said Jesse Logan, who reports for Red Rock Radio.
A DEA spokesman declined to answer questions about whether there are suspects, who owns the land and how long authorities had their eye on the operation.
In recent years, law enforcement agencies have reported busting multimillion indoor operations in the Twin Cities suburbs, calling them "pot palaces." But news of outdoor operations is less frequent.
In July 1991, officials from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension raided farms in north-central Minnesota and destroyed about 5,000 marijuana plants, then valued about $12.5 million. The raid was called among the largest in Minnesota's history. Five men from Ohio were indicted on charges of cloning the plants in Ohio and growing them in Minnesota.
