[Sativa]

A portion of the marijuana that was seized from a Chardon home in June is now missing, according to the Geauga County Sheriff's Department.

Four of the eight grocery store-size paper bags containing whole marijuana plants being stored in a small trailer were recently stolen from an undisclosed, secure location, said Lt. John Hiscox of the Geauga County Sheriff's Department.

"The incident took place a couple of weeks ago, and it was discovered the next day," said Hiscox, who couldn't confirm the exact date of the incident when reached for comment Monday night.

Since the incident, the Geauga County Sheriff's Department has been conducting an investigation, Hiscox said.

The door to the trailer the plants were being kept in was kicked in, and its lock was cut, Hiscox said. The Trumbull-Ashtabula-Geauga Drug Enforcement Task Force had just brought the trailer back from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, in Richfield, where the marijuana had been processed as evidence, Hiscox said.

The value of the marijuana stolen has yet to be determined, Hiscox said. The total weight of what was taken was just less than 15 pounds, but Hiscox explained that the weight accounts for the entire plant, not just the leaves.

"For whatever reason, they didn't take it all," Hiscox said, "so it leads you to believe that they couldn't take it all - it was just too big."

Hiscox said the investigation is ongoing, and speculated that whoever took the plants probably didn't know what he or she was getting into.

"It's hard to tell what they were looking for, but they probably thought it was a tool trailer," Hiscox said. "It's a trailer similar to what some landscapers use, so someone could have been looking for small hand tools."

On June 26, authorities confiscated an estimated $580,000 worth of potted marijuana plants from Cuong T. Tran's basement, at 102 West Pointe Court in Chardon.

That raid, as well as others in Concord Township and Streetsboro, was the result of a months-long investigation by the Trumbull-Ashtabula-Geauga Drug Enforcement Task Force. The investigation into Tran's house in Chardon drew assistance from the Geauga County Sheriff's Department and Chardon police.

During the three raids, authorities collected more than 1,500 full-grown marijuana plants estimated to be worth about $1.5 million.

News Hawk: Lord Mong - http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: News Herald.Com (Ohio)
Author: Michael C. Butz
Contact: MButz@News-Herald.com
Copyright: ©2007 News-Herald- a Journal Register Property
Website:The News-Herald - Seized marijuana comes up missing