“We are kicking their (butts),” said Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, referring to the dealers who lost two shipments from Mexico via Texas packed in specially made bar units, as well as the sophisticated pot greenhouse on Sunrise View Circle.
Marijuana confiscated in the two Mexican shipments and the Liberty Twp. home bust were collectively worth more than $1.8 million.
But unlike the dark comedy about a widowed suburbanite mother who turns to selling marijuana after the death of her husband, Jones warns there is nothing funny about the multi-million dollar illegal business.
“There is a lot of money in it and people are willing to protect their operation,” Jones said. “Firefighters are in danger who go into these houses that often catch fire because marijuana burns like hay, police are in danger and even a girl scout who would innocently knock on the door to sell cookies. These guys are paranoid and they are dangerous.”
Wednesday night, a strong smell of chemicals alarmed residents of a Liberty Twp. neighborhood that something was wrong.
When members of the Butler County Undercover Regional Narcotics Task Force arrived with a warrant, A Bay Luong, 45, and Phuc Ky Luong, 50, were found in the attic covered with insulation. The rest of the house was packed full of pot plants in various stages of growth. Harvested plants hung in the basement to dry. Huge holes cut in the floors and ceiling accommodated a ventilation system so that the marijuana did not mold, which decreases it’s value.
The upstairs windows were covered with dry wall so bright grow lights shining all night would not attract attention. Power sources had been tampered with so a warm, tropical temperature could be maintained in the house year round.
“The house wasn’t for living in,” Jones said.
‘Butler County is a distribution center’
The residence at 5782 Sunrise View Circle in Liberty Twp. was built in 2007 and purchased for $246,000, according to the Butler County Auditor’s website.
Last week it was found housing only 1,050 plants valued at $1 million and a bed.
Purchasers of the home are listed as Gia Ky Luong and Hue Man Phung. A Bay Luong, 65 Bobtail Way, Monroe, who is reportedly from Vietnam and Phuc Ky Luong, a legal resident from China with a listed address in Oakland, Calif., are charged in connection with cultivating $1 million worth of marijuana in the suburban house.
“People wonder why somebody would buy a $250,000 house just to fill it up with marijuana. The reason is money,” said Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones. “I am told if it is grown inside, they can get four crops a year. You would make the money back on the house in one crop.”
Jones said growers choose upper class neighborhoods because people lead busy lives there and often don’t pay attention to there neighbors’s habits. And it’s safe.
“They don’t want to locate some where they have to worry about people robbing them and stealing their crop. They don’t want to have to stand guard all day,” Jones said.
Sgt. Todd Langmeyer said neighbors they talked to remembered in retrospect that the people they saw at 5782 Sunrise View Circle should have raised suspicion. They only showed up at night for a few hours, didn’t carry in groceries and didn’t take out the trash.
“They told us they should have known something wasn’t right,” he said.
The bust came in the same month as two other large pot busts made by the B.U.R.N. Task Force.
On Oct. 21, the unit seized 250 pounds of marijuana that officials say ran from a drug cartel in Mexico, to Texas and into Butler County.
Mario Aguilar, 30, of Brownsville, Texas, faces second-degree felony drug charges after 250 pounds of marijuana was seized by police Oct. 21.
On Oct. 9, the task force intercepted a shipment of a free-standing home bar unit specially built for concealing marijuana. It was shipped from Mexico to Texas and then Butler County, where two men were waiting to take possession of the 268 pounds of pot hidden inside.
In all, the marijuana from the Mexico shipments is worth more than $820,000.
Arrested were Hector Javier Jaramillo, 28, of Springdale, on a charge of possession of drugs, and Ronnie Rey Rico, 29, of Swanton, Ohio, on a charge of complicity to possession of drugs.
Jones said no doubt the Liberty Twp. operation was in competition with the dealers trucking pot in from Mexico.
“Butler County is a distribution center. We are close to the interstate, that is their lifeline,” Jones said. He added some of the marijuana is being sold here but much of it is being sold to middle-level dealers and taken out of the area.
Where’s it going?
“It’s an ongoing investigation. That’s all I can say,” Jones said.
The sheriff said growers and dealers shipping marijuana into the county are getting more sophisticated and even ingenious in their operations. Long gone are the days of hiding crops in between rows of corn.
“We use the helicopter with the infrared cameras and we can see it. It’s cut down on the outside growing a lot,” Jones said.
Butler County’s neighbors
The Warren County Drug Task Force recently busted a Cincinnati man which officials they say has both an indoor and outdoor growing operation.
Richard Lipscomb, 50, was arrested on Oct. 21 by the Warren County Drug Task Force and charged with possession of marijuana, trafficking in marijuana, cultivation of marijuana after allegedly unloading several bags of pot before taking his vehicle in to have a flat tire repaired in Lebanon.
Police recovered the three bags, which contained 17 pounds of marijuana, and seized an undisclosed amount of cash, along with the Lipscomb’s vehicle, according to Commander John Burke.
The drug task force then contacted Hamilton County’s Regional Enforcement Narcotics Unit, which obtained a search warrant for Lipscomb’s home on St. Lawrence Avenue, where they seized more than 60 pounds of marijuana, pot plants and growing equipment.
Lipscomb eventually lead police to three separate marijuana grow location along the beach at Ceasar Creek State Park. The total seizure at those three locations totaled slightly more than 300 pounds of marijuana.
“He was starting his plants at home, then planting them outside,” Burke said.
The Warren County task force has been seen any inside grow operations the size of the one in Liberty Twp., according to Burke.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2168 or lpack@coxohio.com.
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