Florida Criminal Attorney Blog

A marijuana grow house was discovered early this morning in West Palm Beach, Florida. Fire fighters arrived at the scene of a burning mobile home at 5:27 a.m. When the firefighters entered the mobile home looking for residents, the discovered the presence of twelve marijuana plants. Fire fighters entered the residence because neighbors believed that three people resided in the mobile home.

So far no arrests have been made, although I am sure that police investigators are doing their best to determine the identities of those who lived there, or at least frequented the mobile home.

Since growing marijuana requires electricity, the mobile was either connected to an FPL account, a fuel generator, or was stealing electricity from another source. Given my experience as a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor, my guess is that the fire was likely started by messed up electrical wires used to steal power from another source or from gasoline or some other flammable liquid that was used to fuel a generator.

The reason why marijuana grow house operators either steal electricity or make their own using generators, is because law enforcement investigators will look at a property's electrical bill to see if an exponentially large sum of electricity is consumed at that location.

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Federal agents recently arrested 7 people for allegedly smuggling marijuana bound for Miami, Florida. These arrests began with a major bust that went down on December 11, 2010. In that bust, Federal law enforcement acted on information received concerning two boats laden with marijuana that would arrive in Miami from Bimini.

After watching the boats travel up the New River, Federal agents saw the boats dock at a particular house. A raid was executed and 90 bales of marijuana were seized from the bottom of the vessels. A search of the residence attached to the dock revealed the presence of a hydroponics lab, 15 cannabis plants, and a cooler with additional marijuana.

Three people were arrested and charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess and distribute a controlled substance, however the names of those arrested have not yet been released.

The fact that their names have not been released tells me that they may be cooperating with law enforcement officials by providing information or participating in future law enforcement action.

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