Police break up pot-growing operation near Tiger Mountain

Bellevue Police today helped bust a major marijuana-growing operation near the Tiger Mountain Summit, netting at least one dump-truck load of pot plants.

Bellevue Police helped bust a major marijuana-growing operation near Tiger Mountain Wednesday, seizing 25,248 plants with the Eastside Narcotics Task Force (ENTF).

The plants, worth an estimated street value of $5 million, were located in two outdoor grow sites at Taylor Mountain.

Authorities suspect Mexican nationals were responsible for the operation, but no suspects were found.

“They had some names of some states I don’t recognize,” said Bellevue Police spokeswoman Carla Iafrate.

Authorities also found signs of encampments at the sites.

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Planning for the bust began after a bear hunter reported a pot plant, police said.

Task force members used a King County Sheriff’s Guardian One helicopter to scout the area and eventually spot the two marijuana grows.

The bust took approximately four hours. Bellevue SWAT team members hiked to the sites and secured them so helicopters could drop off personnel from the state’s Cannabis Eradication Response Team, which harvested and counted the marijuana plants before airlifting them to a dump truck.

Iafrate said it took officers over an hour to reach one of the encampments, located 300 yards into the brush. The other site was located one mile from the team’s starting point.

Both grows were set up in garden-like fashion, according to Iafrate.

“They had nice, tidy rows,” she said. “It was farming.”

The marijuana grows were rare finds. Authorities say most operations in King County are located indoor. The majority of outdoor grows are set up in remote, unpopulated areas of other counties, according to authorities.

The Eastside Narcotics Task Force played a major role in the bust. The group is made up of law-enforcement agencies from Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Mercer Island, and the King County Sheriff’s office.

Other agencies involved in the mission included the Washington Fish and Game Department, Washington State Patrol, the DEA, and the National Guard.

The bust on Wednesday involved around 20 members of the Bellevue Police Department, Iafrate said. Some were SWAT, while others were with the ENTF.