Mexican soldiers found the largest marijuana plantation ever detected in Mexico, a huge field covering almost 300 acres, the Defense Department said Thursday.
The plantation is four times larger than the previous record discovery by authorities at a ranch in northern Chihuahua state in 1984.
The pot plants sheltered under black screen-cloth in a huge square on the floor of the Baja California desert, more than 150 miles south of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.
Army Gen. Alfonso Duarte said the screening, which is often used by regular farmers to protect crops from too much sun or heat, made it difficult to detect from the air what was growing underneath.
It was only when soldiers on the ground reached the isolated area Tuesday that they found thousands of pot plants as high as 2.5 yards tall. The average height of the plants was about 1.5 yards. Duarte said they were not yet ready for harvest.
"We estimate that in this area, approximately 60 people were working. When they saw the military personnel, they fled," Duarte told reporters. A few were later reportedly detained at a nearby roadblock, but Duarte said no arrests were made at the scene.
He said traffickers could have harvested about 120 tons of marijuana from the plantation, worth about 1.8 billion pesos (about $160 million).
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/14/army-uncovers-mexicos-largest-marijuana-plantation/?test=latestnews
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