Abandoned cell phone put agents on the trail

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August 15, 2007

By Mark Freeman

Mail Tribune

Four Mexican nationals arrested this past week are allegedly part of a Mexico-based drug trafficking organization that has turned to Southern Oregon's remote forests to grow massive amounts of marijuana that are then marketed nationally, authorities say.

Law enforcement officials have discovered and pulled tens of thousands of marijuana plants this past week on plantations hidden on federal forestland, where they are tended and guarded by armed men paid as much as $1,500 a day, court documents show.

When harvested, the marijuana is marketed nationally by organizations that have had a presence here for at least five years, though their growing efforts recently have ramped up significantly, said Capt. Lee Fox of the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Forest Service.

"I guess we provide a remote area where they can conceal some of their crops," Fox said.

"We're still attempting to put a dent in these organizations," Fox said. "It's an insurmountable task. It's going to be a tough battle for the foreseeable future."

Details of the operation were highlighted in complaints filed in U.S. District Court against four suspected illegal aliens jailed as part of an investigation that began two years ago, when a federal agent struck evidentiary gold at a marijuana grow site discovered on public land.

Over time, the case included a tip from a local big-box retail store, federal surveillance of trails used to access large marijuana gardens and SWAT teams. It culminated in four arrests and the removal of as many as 42,000 marijuana plants from federal lands since Friday.

The current case, according to a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent's affidavit, began when a Bureau of Land Management special agent in October 2005 found a cellular telephone at a campsite associated with a marijuana operation on unspecified public land in Jackson County.

Subpoena results showed that phone was used to make several calls to a number issued to Genaro Zaragoza-Infante, who had an address in the 200 block of North Ross Lane and was issued the phone in December 2003, the affidavit states.

Federal agents had Zaragoza-Infante, his house and his vehicle under surveillance, records show. But it wasn't until a June 28 tip from employees at the Home Depot store in Phoenix that the case broke wide open, authorities said.

Employees there told federal agents that two suspicious Hispanic males bought seven large containers of Miracle-Gro fertilizer and left in a pickup later determined to be registered to Zaragoza-Infante, one affidavit states.

A DEA agent reviewed the store's security videotapes and recognized Zaragoza-Infante, according to the affidavit.

On July 2, agents tailed a pickup that Zaragoza-Infante was driving with three passengers as it traveled to a Medford irrigation supply store, where the men bought a large roll of irrigation pipe, the affidavit states. Other surveillance work placed that pickup in the Carberry Creek Road area near Applegate Lake, where Fox later found marijuana plants growing in two locations.

On July 18, Zaragoza-Infante was stopped in Jackson County for a traffic violation, during which he gave a Jackson County sheriff's deputy the same cell number discovered on the phone found in 2005, according to the affidavit.

On Aug. 6, investigators hiding near the heads of trails leading to the Applegate Lake-area marijuana sites videotaped two men — one carrying a white plastic bag and the other an "assault type rifle" — walking down the trail and later exchanging items with three Hispanic males in a white pickup.

Police later arrested the three men in that pickup — identified as Zaragoza-Infante and co-defendants Timoteo Hernandez-Guzman, 46, and Angel Cardenas-Estrada, 20 — on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, police said.

A white plastic bag found in the pickup contained freshly cut marijuana buds, the affidavit states.

Federal agents then planned a dawn raid Friday on the two plantations, netting 32,176 plants with a potential wholesale value of $112 million.

During the raid at a plantation in the Indian Creek drainage, police found two armed men and arrested one while the second escaped, court papers say.

The apprehended man identified himself as Jose Guadalupe Gomez-Gonzalez, 22, a Mexican national who told agents that he was paid $1,500 a day to tend the plants. Agents removed almost 8,000 plants from that location in one of six gardens raided Friday.

Agents returned Tuesday to the woods near Applegate Lake, where they removed up to 10,000 more marijuana plants.

All four suspects were being held this week on no-bail immigration holds.

The man who escaped was known to be carrying an assault-type rifle, Fox said.

"We've arrested four people and we know we've had one run from us," Fox said. "That's just not a good situation."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

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