Drug Enforcement Agents in Bladen, Sampson and Robeson counties joined forces to remove marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $9.3 million during the harvest season. 

Bladen County Sheriff Department’s Chief Deputy Phillip Little stated, “ We have been able to remove over 4,000 plants in Bladen County with ... the arrest of nine individuals.”

Little, a helicopter pilot, said he and four Bladen County drug enforcement agents fly over Bladen County during the marijuana growing and harvesting seasons to locate the plants and eradicate them. The plants can be identified from the air by their unusual color of green and their leaf pattern among the natural vegetation known to the area. 

Little and his agents, along with agents from surrounding counties and, occasionally, joined by federal agents, will fly in Air-1, which is operated by Little. The law enforcement agents will fly to the far reaches of neighboring counties that are not accessible by vehicles in an attempt to uncover the illegal plants and their care takers, according to Little.

“Bladen County Drug Enforcement agents assisted with the bust of a large commercial marijuana growing camp on the Bladen-Sampson County line,” Little said. “Officers recovered 14,000 plants at this location, alone. These large camps are set-up in rural areas and the Hispanic operators of these camps will cultivate the land then plant the marijuana; keep them insect free through the growing season; and provide the plants with irrigation by the use of ditches, rivers and streams adjacent to where the plants are located.

It has long been a problem in California and now it is being seen in North Carolina. We have not only uncovered the one at the Sampson County line, but two other such operations were discovered within Bladen County and these camps have been found in Duplin and Wayne counties, too.” 

According to Little, the Mexican drug traffic organization will set up camp in very rural areas. It might be a tract of timber land or land that is just not visited very often by the landowner. The camp operators will take care of thousands of plants. They will also go to the extreme of putting up trip wires, booby-traps and covered ground pits filled with punji sticks — bamboo stakes which have been honed to a sharp point, according to Wikipedia.

“The environment in southeast North Carolina is perfect for the growing of these illegal plants, but the pesticides used on the plants are very harmful to our environment and it runs off into our water systems. Marijuana is the number one cash producing illegal drug in the whole country. It is by far larger than cocaine or heroin,” said Little. “These camps pose a threat to land owners. If anyone comes up on a suspicious looking area, or it just doesn’t look like it did the last time you were there, you need to back away from it and notify the sheriff’s department. These are BIG operations with a lot to lose if they are discovered and they will do all they can to protect their investment.”