Deputies Raid ‘Pot’ Farm With $1.5-Million Crop

An anonymous tip led Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to a marijuana farm off Topanga Canyon Road in Malibu whose crop was worth an estimated street value of $1.5 million, according to sheriff’s deputies. Detectives on Sunday followed garden hoses from the marijuana patches through a heavily wooded area to a nearby home where they arrested Christopher Conde, 27, on a charge of cultivating marijuana.

In the rented house, officers found scales, packaging material and five pounds of dried marijuana in bags, said Malibu Detective John Cater. The Sheriff’s Department is investigating whether at least one other suspect may have been involved. The plants, in seven gardens, were in transportable buckets and ranged from seedlings to man-high specimens ready for harvest, Cater said.