Nearly 200 Marijuana Plants Seized From 3 Ceres Homes
CERES (CBS13) - Ceres police found a lot of marijuana growing in three backyards in a usually quiet neighborhood.
Police describe it as brazen, with pot plants about 12 feet tall, which could be seen from the front yard.
"Neighbors in that area came tired of the foot traffic, tired of the smell, tired of what these types of grows attract," said Sgt. Jose Berber, Ceres Police Department.
Ceres police officers had no idea what was going on in this neighborhood, until fed up neighbors tipped them off.
Thursday morning, officers and swat team members came knocking at the trio of homes, two across the street from each other on Don Pedro Road, and the other a few yards away on El Camino Avenue.
Police say they discovered tall marijuana plants growing in the backyards.
"The plants found on Don Pedro, the main grow, yielded approximately 1,570 pounds of marijuana," said Berber.
That doesn't include the rest of the pot confiscated officers are still sorting, because the plants are 10-12 feet tall.
Police say neighbors having been growing them for quite sometime.
They say all three neighbors talked to each other, but it's too soon to know if they were growing marijuana together.
"We haven't determined of it's a ring or some type of criminal association that they have amongst themselves," said Berber.
In all, officers discovered almost 200 plants with a street value close to $500,000.
This is the latest in a string of pot busts in the greater Stanislaus Country area.
There have been no arrests made so far as officials are working to find out who is behind the pot grows.
Police say the marijuana is worth almost $9 million.
