Marijuana worth $2 million was discovered Tuesday by a Texas man who was just looking to graze cattle on his recently acquired land, ABC News reported. The back-woods area is now being investigated by Texas authorities to find out who is responsible for the secret marijuana growing operation.
A Chambers County, Texas, rancher called the county Sheriff's Office after checking out land that he recently leased from the Army Corps of Engineers, and witnessing two individuals run off when they saw him in a back-woods area Tuesday. Upon searching the land, deputies found 5,500 marijuana plants with a street value of about $2 million.
"Primarily, the most impressive thing of it was that it was a pretty elaborate growing operation," Chambers County Sheriff's Office Sheriff Brian Hawthorne told ABC News Thursday.
The land was allegedly hand-cleared about two acres deep in the woods by those responsible for the growing operation, with a watering system devised to make sure that the plants had optimum sunlight, Hawthorne said. "There's no doubt they understood the principles of what it was going to take to create a watering system [and] the environment that they needed to have so as to start the marijuana plants from a seedling," said Hawthorne.
Meanwhile, deputies also discovered that a camp had been set up with two tents where the suspected individuals were living off on canned goods, eggs and tortillas. "It's not an area that normally anyone would [be]," Hawthorne said. "There's no reason anyone would be back there other than the purpose of ranching or the purpose of hunting."
While they still haven't found the individuals, Hawthorne said he believes they are part of a larger criminal element and that the plants had been there for some time. "They were answering to somebody," he said. "Some of the equipment that we've seized from the site of this marijuana growing operation we feel is going to lead us to additional criminal enterprise."
The state police has been handed over the plants by the sheriff's office for destruction, according to ABC News.
