Multi-agency raid eradicates Utah pot farm

Near Cedar City • Three arrested, 2,000 plants seized from Mexican cartel operation.

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Iron County Sheriff Mark Gower says a multi-agency raid on a remote southern Utah marijuana farm culminated in three arrests and seizure of some 2,000 pot plants.

More than 30 law enforcement officers, including sheriff's deputies from Gower's department and the neighboring Sevier County Sheriff's Office, police officers from Cedar City and Parowan, Utah Highway Patrol troopers and federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents, descended on the illicit farm site Monday morning.

The plants were uprooted from the site, about 5 miles east of Cedar City in Right Hand Canyon, air-lifted by helicopter to the Iron County Landfill and then "buried very deep," Gower said.

Gower said evidence links the marijuana farm operation, which may have been operating for two years, to Mexican drug cartel interests.

Gower credited UHP troopers for turning up initial information on the farm during traffic stops last week on Interstate 15 in Sevier County. Three people were arrested in those stops, and information generated during questioning and gathering of other unspecified evidence, planning for the raid began.

remims@sltrib.com

Twitter: @remims