Pot Farms Show Drug Traffickers Going High-Tech

It was like stumbling onto the master villain’s secret hide-out in a movie.

At a solitary ranch house in the high desert 10 days ago, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and federal drug agents found an incredible sight: thousands of marijuana plants lining a huge, high-tech subterranean bunker beneath an outdoor basketball court.

The underground farm near Lancaster was one of three in California and two in Arizona discovered over the past three weeks that investigators say are linked to a multimillion-dollar marijuana production ring, a major and previously unknown supplier of marijuana in Southern California.

One Drug Enforcement Administration agent called the combined haul from the farms “the largest indoor seizure in the history of DEA.”

In the latest find, narcotics investigators announced Friday that they had discovered a marijuana farm under construction near Barstow that is believed to be part of the Antelope Valley and Arizona operations. No drugs were found at that farm, investigators said.

These cases provide dramatic evidence of a recent geographic and technological shift in marijuana production, experts say.

A slowdown in outdoor pot production caused by aggressive law enforcement activity and other factors has literally driven many growers underground, experts say. Growers are relocating indoors, some of them moving to isolated desert areas such as the Antelope Valley, and to the San Gabriel Valley, said Capt. Larry Waldie, commander of the Sheriff’s Department narcotics unit.

But adversity has bred prosperity: sophisticated cultivation equipment makes indoor growing much more lucrative than outdoor growing, producing a top-potency drug and four harvests a year as opposed to one, experts said.

So far this year, law enforcement agencies have raided 1,923 growing sites statewide, 243 of them indoors, Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Charles Stowell said. Although the indoor raids are just a fraction of the total, authorities say they reflect a continuing increase. There were fewer than 100 indoor busts during roughly the same period just four years ago.

“We have created this monster called ‘the indoor grow,’ ” said Stowell, coordinator of anti-marijuana efforts in the state.

Twelve people have been arrested in the Antelope Valley-Arizona case, including a Lancaster contractor alleged to have run the tightly organized network with corporate efficiency.

During the course of the investigation, authorities have confiscated 23,000 marijuana plants worth $77 million.

They estimate the potential yield of the four functioning farms at a staggering 46 tons a year, all of it destined for the Southern California market, Stowell said. He said about 87 tons had been seized so far this year in California.

The alleged ringleaders escaped detection for two years by setting up shop in sparsely populated, remote desert areas, the longtime haven for criminal gangs that manufacture methamphetamine and PCP in clandestine labs, authorities said.

The farm near Lancaster, which cost about $1 million to build and was capable of producing at least $75 million a year in profits, was designed for maximum secrecy. It had a surveillance camera, bales of hay positioned to mask the aroma of the drug and a thick concrete roof designed to foil infrared surveillance devices that detect heat from plant lights.

Until the late 1980s, marijuana farming was largely the province of Northern California producers, authorities said. While some growers stayed in Northern California, moving their operations indoors, others headed south.

The largest previous indoor seizure took place in June, 1989, when 8,000 plants were found at a farm near Sacramento.

“Until last week, Southern California was never perceived as a major growing area,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen L. Cooley, head of the district attorney’s Lancaster office.

In addition to the Lancaster farm owned by 28-year-old Richard F. Yerger, investigators raided a smaller, newer farm 20 miles away in the tiny foothill community of Llano. The second house was owned by Yerger’s father, 60-year-old contractor Richard E. Yerger, and appeared built exclusively to conceal the underground plantation. The unfinished farm outside Barstow was about 80 miles northeast of the Antelope Valley.

The younger Yerger surrendered to authorities along with Frank Gegax, a 48-year-old contractor described by Cooley as the “brains” and financier of the operation. Both are charged with possession, cultivation for sale and maintaining a place for production of marijuana. Two alleged “caretakers” are also charged with possession and cultivation. All four are to be arraigned Tuesday.

A lawyer for Yerger said he believes his client is innocent. Neither Gegax, who is in federal custody, nor his attorney could be reached for comment. Yerger and the other two suspects are being held at the Los Angeles County Jail.

Investigators are seeking additional suspects, including the elder Yerger.

They are also piecing together a picture of an enterprise one deputy described as a “marijuana empire.”

Like the Arizona farms, the Lancaster farm operated for at least two years, with the younger Yerger acting as front man for Gegax, authorities said. Gegax and the Yergers had the means and ability to build the clandestine sites, Cooley said, and they selected an area populated chiefly by Joshua trees and junk heaps.

“You almost had to have a four-wheel vehicle to get down the dirt road to the house” on Avenue E, Capt. Waldie said.

All of the farms involved used water tanks, wells, and diesel generators intended to keep down electric bills that could draw suspicion.

Enormous amounts of power were needed for hundreds of grow lights valued at $500 each. The Arizona farms used 10,000 kilowatts of electricity a month each, compared to 900 per month used by the average home, Stowell said.

Gegax allegedly had separate “managers” who designed and oversaw each operation, Stowell said. The Llano and Arizona farms used hydroponic growing equipment and a fully automated irrigation system that only required checking every couple of days.

“You get the right mixture of chemicals and then you can go out and play golf,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald Smalstig.

On the other hand, the caretakers at the Avenue E farm had to water plants kept in black plastic planters and regulate lighting daily. After harvesting, the growers used hooks on the ceiling of the garage-sized building over the bunker to hang bales of drying marijuana. The last harvest took place about a month before the raid, deputies said.

The finished product was machine-packaged in one-pound plastic freezer bags and placed in cartons. Two people could do the bulk of the work from start to finish, Waldie said.

Investigators are focusing on how the ring distributed to wholesalers around the county and on the background of the suspects, who maintained the appearance of legitimate businessmen and did not appear to be violent. The alleged profiles of Gegax and the others show that criminals of all types--from “Mom-and-Pop outfits to cartels,” one agent said--are involved in marijuana trafficking.

“These were smart businessman types as opposed to violent street types,” said DEA Group Supervisor John Albano. “High-level drug entrepreneurs.”

Acquaintances describe Gegax as a well-dressed plumbing contractor with a confidence bordering on cockiness. Federal authorities say he had a previous brush with the law, an arrest in 1973 in the San Diego area for smuggling marijuana by airplane, but they have not yet determined how the case was resolved.

They said neither Gegax nor the Yergers--who worked together in the elder Yerger’s construction business--were well-known in the community.

Gegax worked with the Yergers, according to authorities and competitors, on a 240-unit senior citizen housing complex in a Lancaster redevelopment area. A $4-million fire destroyed the unfinished complex in November, 1987. Arson investigators suspect that the fire was intentionally set, but have made no arrests. The investigation may resume as a result of the marijuana bust, authorities said.

The fire and ensuing litigation hurt the Yergers financially, according to Richard F. Yerger’s brother-in-law, Alfred Brand.

“They were essentially shut down,” Brand said. “They didn’t have any money.”

The drug case has generated excitement in the Antelope Valley, where drug trafficking is usually associated with scruffy bikers or street gangs from “down below,” as locals refer to the rest of Los Angeles County. More raids, arrests and plot twists are expected.

“Everybody in town is talking about it,” said Lancaster Councilman Arnie Rodio, who said he met Gegax once at a political fund-raiser. “They’re making a lot of jokes about basements.”

Times staff writer John Chandler contributed to this story.