[Sativa]

Riverside County sheriff's officials continued Monday to withhold key information about Friday's regionwide bust of at least 10 indoor marijuana farms, citing the California Public Records Act.

The names of seven people now in custody, as well as the location of many of the busts, have not been released by the department, which cites harm that would be done to its ongoing investigation by such a disclosure.

Tom Freeman, chief of the department's Media Information Division, said the safety of officers and confidential informants would be compromised by the disclosure of the information.

In Friday's busts, officers seized more than 14,000 plants with an estimated value of $60 million to $80 million. One home was raided in the 14100 block of Sugarcreek Circle in Eastvale, and two other homes were raided in Corona.

In an interview Monday afternoon, Freeman said that Friday's busts were a component of an investigation into what he indicated was a far larger marijuana-growing crime ring.

If people now being quietly investigated were to read the names of arrested associates in print - and learn the locations of houses busted Friday - they could be tipped off to a pending arrest or indoor-grow bust, Freeman said.

Since March, police officials throughout Southern California have conducted a series of indoor pot-farm busts, many of which were established in homes in upscale suburban neighborhoods. In those cases, officials released the names of those arrested within days of the bust.

Investigators say marijuana farmers are moving their operations indoors to avoid police detection, and to create a controlled environment more conducive to growing potent strains of the plant more difficult to cultivate outdoors.

In the past, busts of pot houses in Southern California came, at the most, in groups of two or three, making Friday's bust notably large.

The operation was led by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department's West County Narcotics Task Force. Other participating agencies included the Jurupa Valley and Corona Gang Task Force, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and Riverside Police Department.



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Source: DailyBulletin.com
Author: Will Bigham
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Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
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