700 marijuana plants seized in Eastvale home raid
10:54 AM PDT on Thursday, September 13, 2007
The Press-Enterprise
Law enforcement officials arrested three men Wednesday night in a raid on a house in a new Eastvale development and discovered an indoor marijuana growing operation and more than 700 plants.
The house, in the 6500 block of Hollis Street near Schleisman Road, with high-intensity lights and watering equipment, had a capacity of about 3,000 plants. It also had an altered electrical meter to disguise its power use, Riverside County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jerry Franchville said Wednesday.
The operation was conducted by the West County Narcotics Taskforce, made up of the Sheriff's Department, the Riverside Police Department, the Riverside County Probation Department, the Corona Police Department, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Riverside County Department of Child Protective Services.
Ying Yochu, 36, Ming Jie Zhao, 21, and Sijian Chen, 37, were arrested on suspicion of cultivating marijuana, Franchville said.
Neighbors noticed no one seemed to live in the home and people stopped by for a few hours every few weeks, Franchville said. Someone called the WeTip line and they passed the information on to the task force, Franchville said.
The 732 plants found at the home were worth about $2.2 million, Franchville said. Others had already been harvested, he said. Plants like those found in the raid can be harvested every 90 days or so, Franchville said.
--Sarah Burge
sburge@PE.com
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