Marijuana Farms in Seattle Operated by Vietnamese Americans

International Examiner, News Report, Diem Ly, Posted: Dec 12, 2007

An outbreak of marijuana farms are in Seattle — run by Vietnamese Americans


It puts a new spin on gardening at home.

Neighbors have no clue the quiet suburban home next door could be a full-fledged cannabis-growing operation.

The Seattle Police Department said Vietnamese marijuana growing organizations purchase homes throughout the Puget Sound and construct elaborate indoor cultivation factories on the premises.
Investigators are just now pulling open the curtains on a secretive world. Many of which end deadly.

THE HEADLINES

The most recent cases, as reported in the Seattle Times, was the Nov. 8 arrest of two Vietnamese men in connection with the July slayings of Linda Nguyen, 20, and Kevin Meas, 23, who were fatally shot in an Everett home containing over 400 marijuana plants. Another 800 plants were found in another co-owned home. The two men arrested, a 24- and 20-year-old, were booked into Snohomish County Jail on two counts each of first-degree murder. One of the men was Nguyen’s brother. Three people including the co-owner of the house, were charged in the U.S. District Court for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.

On Sept. 21, a Vietnamese national turned himself in to the Seattle Police Department after fatally shooting Duc Nguyen and injuring his girlfriend, Lisa Nguyen. Tri Vo, 24, apparently shot the two after an argument over a home-grown marijuana operation near Covington, a city east of Kent.

On Oct. 18, 2006, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raided and arrested 20 Vietnamese, seized 11 grow operations, found more than 4,000 plants, and $25,000 in cash. The DEA said it was the culmination of a one-year investigation into Vietnamese marijuana factories in the area.

Since 2005, federal and state agents have busted more than 100 major grow houses in the Seattle area and confiscated more than 41,000 plants, according to the White House Drug Czar’s Office.
On the current DEA’s Seattle Division Most Wanted list, of the seven Asian suspects listed, five are Vietnamese on marijuana-related charges.

And the operations are not confined to Seattle or the United States. Canada has battled the home-grown factories for years. An expert on Asian organized crime in Canada told the Asian Pacific Post, “Vietnamese groups are the largest producer of marijuana in the country.”

Researchers in Vancouver, B.C. estimated roughly 17,500 “grow-ops” exist in B.C. A Canadian police study showed that during 1997, the number of Vietnamese suspects involved in cultivations rose 26 percent.

On the other side of the Atlantic, according to England’s Evening Chronicle, on Nov. 7, police raided six Vietnamese-run cannabis factories and confiscated hundreds of plants with a street value of tens of thousands of pounds. In May, a similar raid revealed 1.5 million pounds worth of cannabis taken from four homes. Police in the U.K. said three-fourths of the operations they’re busting are run by Vietnamese.

WHY VIETNAMESE AMERICANS

Rhett Fonseca of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Seattle Division explains only Vietnamese are found cultivating marijuana in this way and that this pattern is not coincidental.

After Sept. 11, Fonseca said “beefing up’”security along the Canadian border caused Canadian Vietnamese to migrate their drug operations to the United States to avoid border risks and increase profitability in the larger U.S. market.

“It’s really logical,” Fonseca said in an interview with the IE. “The name of the game is to make money. It’s a business — except that it’s illicit. Just like any other business, you think of where to move, where to make money, where the investment is less risky.”

According to the National Drug Intelligence Center May 2007 report, Canadian Vietnamese will grow marijuana in the United States, such as in the Seattle region, in order to minimize risks in transporting the drug to the more desirable and larger U.S. drug market. In this way, growers claim a higher profit margin, don’t have to smuggle or risk a seizure, and the crime leaders can keep their distance from the day-to-day operations by remaining in Canada.

A Vietnamese-Canadian community leader told the Asian Pacific Post, “Many of them feel this is the easy way to make money. They have language problems and cannot get high-paying jobs and they go to do this because of the easy cash.”

THE THREAT

According to a recent federal assessment on Vietnamese drug syndicates, these criminal groups have a wide-ranging influence over the drug market. This includes not only the cultivation of marijuana but also the drug’s transport and distribution. Cannabis is usually trafficked by its growers or those within the crime organization.

According to the National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2007 Threat Assessment, it reported that Asian criminal groups emerged in the United States as the primary transporters and distributors of Canada-produced high potency marijuana. The report said the Asian groups are not as structured as the Mexican or Columbian organizations, but, on the Pacific coast, Vietnamese are the primary Asian drug trafficking organizations. And, according to the report, their control over marijuana distribution is increasing.

“The influence and breadth of Asian criminal groups,” read the report, “particularly Vietnamese, are expanding to regions throughout the country.”

Asian criminal groups are active in every region of the country, but most active in metropolitan areas with large Asian populations. There, the groups increased their hold on marijuana cultivation and production. Seattle is one of those cities.

And the threat is growing, literally. Some growers travel to Vancouver, B.C to learn how to cultivate a new, higher-potency marijuana called “super-dope.” The “B.C. Bud” as it’s also called, sells for up to $6,000 a pound.

INTO ITS SECRET WORLD

To uncover the secrets of the “grow-ops” inner workings, we look to Canada’s investigations into its own illicit Vietnamese “grow-ops.” Their investigations can answer why so many are springing up despite the crackdowns and why it’s a challenge for authorities to catch the culprits.

Canada’s Asian Pacific Post reported the operations are structured through “family units.” Using a blend of “fear, trust, and relatives,” the Vietnamese have taken control over the multi-billion dollar Canadian cannabis trade.

The groups range in size from four people to as many as 100. “Crop-sitters” are paid to tend to the plants or tutored how to grow them, while others ready the pot for smuggling or play the role of security and watch over the operation.

The groups usually seek out middle-class homes in suburban neighborhoods with large basements or garages, which offer more space to cultivate plants and cultivate more profit.

Typical equipment are heat lamps, artificial lights, and water — simple, cheap, and easy for any grower to start their field of chronic. But, Fonseca warns, don’t underestimate: “The Vietnamese are sophisticated” in their operations.

Vancouver authorities said the methods used in Canada are being replicated in the U.K., Australia, the United States, and elsewhere.

Fonseca reports it’s these Asian Canadian drug organizations providing the leadership and financial backing for most of the marijuana “farms” in the Seattle region.

The tremendous profit has been worth the risk for many. So, the crackdowns across Seattle, the country, and the world, appear to have had little impact on deterring this thirst for profit.

THE WAY TO A SOLUTION?

Language and cultural barriers are the main reasons why drug authorities encounter challenges in taking down the gangs or infiltrating them. Few officers speak Vietnamese or could successfully penetrate the groups. Authorities said Asian criminal groups are tight-knit networks that typically conduct drug transactions with individuals of a similar ethnicity.

Officer Fonseca, however, remains optimistic. He said the DEA is making serious efforts to combat the Vietnamese growers and overcome their limitations.?
“It does make it harder,” admits Fonseca. “The ‘heads’ are out of the country, the language barrier … but we’re creative, too.”


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