91,000 marijuana plants seized in raid at pot farm in Pawnee County

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, Drug Enforcement Administration and several other agencies shut down a large marijuana grow operation in Pawnee County, seizing more than 91,000 marijuana plants and more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana ready for sale on the black market.

"This is one of the largest marijuana operations that we've shut down in the last year or so," said Mark Woodward with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

Where did this happen?

OBN agents executed a search warrant at a farm along E 5400 Road, east of Hallett, on Wednesday. More than 200 officers were involved in the search from OBN, DEA, Pawnee County Sheriff's Office, Pawnee Police and Cleveland Police. Agents say they searched a couple dozen buildings on the property and all were full of marijuana.

"It's just part of the pattern that we've seen over the last four years of criminals coming to Oklahoma to take advantage of our cheap license, our cheap land, our loose regulations and hiring someone who is a local person as a straw owner," said Woodward.

Who was involved?

Agents arrested Ming Zhu and three others were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. OBN says the investigation is ongoing and they could make more arrests.

OBN says the grow operation was run under a fraudulent license and the marijuana was illegally sold.

An ongoing problem in Oklahoma:

OBN says they shut down nearly 7,000 illegal marijuana grow operations in just the last couple of years. They say they have 700 farms under investigation right now, all across the state.

"One hundred percent of the product from these farms is going into trucks that are offloaded in Oklahoma City, put in semi trucks in boxes labeled camera equipment or other things and they are going from Flushing New York, to Texas, to California, providing black market marijuana all across the United States," said Woodward.

Organized Crime:

OBN says they've tied illegal grows in Oklahoma to organized crime in Mexico, China, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy, Armenia and more.

"We've tied these groups to homicides, extortion, labor trafficking, sex trafficking, water theft, electrical theft," said Woodward.

OBN says they want the message to be, don't open illegal grows in Oklahoma because your paperwork, your workers and your ownership will be put under a microscope and you'll go to jail.

OBN says in 2022, there were nearly 10,000 illegal marijuana grow operations in the state and now there are about 2,200.

Arkansas has nine legal marijuana marijuana farms and they still produce more than can be sold in their state.