Those crazy real estate agents!
Renton pair plead guilty in massive pot-growing operation
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
A Renton couple today pleaded guilty to manufacturing marijuana and related financial crimes in connection with recent raids on suburban pot-growing operations that federal officials say centered around a Kent garden-supply store.
Thu Anh "Diana" Tran, 32, and her husband, James Nguyen, 47, admitted to owning 10 houses that they leased to indoor marijuana-growing operations. Raids on six of the homes yielded nearly 4,000 marijuana plants, according to federal task force agents. In a good year, that many plants could reap profits of several million dollars.
Cash rental payments on the houses alone amounted to "several hundred thousand dollars" for the couple in 2005, according to federal prosecutors.
Nguyen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. Tran, a former realty agent, pleaded guilty to structuring illicit cash transactions to avoid bank reporting requirements. In three days in 2005, according to court papers, Tran deposited $36,500 in cash — split into amounts that would not trigger currency-transaction reporting requirements.
Tran's family operated Kent Garden Supplies, which federal agents say was the hub of a sophisticated pot-growing model commonly used in British Columbia. The store purchased banks of grow lights and all the other equipment needed to cultivate marijuana, including seedlings.
Store employees allegedly helped grow operations set up, provided advice on issues ranging from fertilizer to how to avoid law-enforcement detection, and then helped distribute the drugs. In some cases, the store allegedly provided the growing materials on credit paid from the crop's profits.
The couple will be sentenced Jan. 11 in U.S. District Court in Seattle
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
A Renton couple today pleaded guilty to manufacturing marijuana and related financial crimes in connection with recent raids on suburban pot-growing operations that federal officials say centered around a Kent garden-supply store.
Thu Anh "Diana" Tran, 32, and her husband, James Nguyen, 47, admitted to owning 10 houses that they leased to indoor marijuana-growing operations. Raids on six of the homes yielded nearly 4,000 marijuana plants, according to federal task force agents. In a good year, that many plants could reap profits of several million dollars.
Cash rental payments on the houses alone amounted to "several hundred thousand dollars" for the couple in 2005, according to federal prosecutors.
Nguyen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. Tran, a former realty agent, pleaded guilty to structuring illicit cash transactions to avoid bank reporting requirements. In three days in 2005, according to court papers, Tran deposited $36,500 in cash — split into amounts that would not trigger currency-transaction reporting requirements.
Tran's family operated Kent Garden Supplies, which federal agents say was the hub of a sophisticated pot-growing model commonly used in British Columbia. The store purchased banks of grow lights and all the other equipment needed to cultivate marijuana, including seedlings.
Store employees allegedly helped grow operations set up, provided advice on issues ranging from fertilizer to how to avoid law-enforcement detection, and then helped distribute the drugs. In some cases, the store allegedly provided the growing materials on credit paid from the crop's profits.
The couple will be sentenced Jan. 11 in U.S. District Court in Seattle
Comments
I was down at an auction yard in Lewis County awhile back when we auctioned off all of my grandfather's farm equipment and there were a couple of pallets of grow lights there. I asked one of the auction workers about them, and he said it was common for a deputy to attend the auction and get the name of the person who bought them so they could, um, "keep an eye on them." He said that the very same lights would often come back to them for another auction after the previous owners were busted! :roll:
And sudden changes in useage of electricity for a given address trip lots of red flags also (I worked for Puget Power during college).
I've read of this situation (same small group of people buying several houses for indoor pot plantations) happening in other states also. And with the zero-down financing over the past several years, they didn't even have to reinvest any of their profits!
some agents show you how to roll blunts
I almost asked Dex what he was smoking when he made This comment:
Now I don't have to ask.