Bangor pot bust nets 2K plants
Marijuana’s street value pegged at $1M
The Yuba County Sheriff’s Office and Butte County Special Enforcement Unit arrested two people, seized more than 2,000 marijuana plants, $2,556 in cash, three shotguns and a handgun from an illegal cultivation site in Bangor on Tuesday.
Tommy Chong Yang Fang, 53, and Liangze Fang, 55, were arrested on suspicion of criminal conspiracy and planting, harvesting or processing marijuana. Officers served a search warrant in the 1500 block of Swedes Flat Road, Bangor.
The marijuana seized during the search had a street value worth more than $1 million, said Leslie Carbah, spokesperson for YCSO.
The Tuesday incident is linked to last week’s bust of an illegal marijuana cultivation site on Krosens Way in Loma Rica, where three individuals were arrested on similar charges.
While deputies were serving the search warrant in Loma Rica, Tommy Fang showed up at the location. When questioned why he was there, Fang reportedly “advised he was just visiting the grow,” said Sgt. Brandon Spear, in a press release. Fang told law enforcement he lived in Bangor and had his own marijuana grow.
Detectives surveilled Fang and discovered he had more than 20 greenhouses filled with marijuana plants, Spear said.
During the search, law enforcement also found evidence in Tommy Fang’s bedroom that confirms ties with the Krosens Road grow site, Carbah said.
YCSO has busted three large-scale illegal marijuana cultivation sites – six converted houses in the Edgewater area of Linda on March 16, the bust in Loma Rica on May 17 and Tuesday’s bust in Bangor – in which at least 10 of the individuals arrested were born in China.
“We don’t have any connections between the Edgewater and two foothill grows, but obviously we are seeing a trend in that demographic of cultivation sales from out of the area,” Carbah said.
Tommy Fang and Liangze Fang were booked into Yuba County Jail.