Mexican nationals get 10 years for marijuana growing operations in Wisconsin forest

Chequemegon forest

Three Mexican nationals were sentenced on Feb. 3 to 10 years in federal prison for a marijuana growing operation based in the sprawling, thickly-wooded Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin.

Cesar Tinoco, 21, Abraham Ramirez, 29, and Jorge Lopez-Ontiveros, 25, all citizens of Mexico, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana charges last November.

Tinoco, Ramirez and Lopez-Ontiveros were apprehended in early August 2011, along with Jose Esqueda-Garcia, 19, of Mexico, Moises Lopez-Ontiveros, 21, of Mexico, and Norberto Burciaga, 40, of St. Paul, MN, after the marijuana they tended in the 1.5-million-acre forest was raided by more than 200 law enforcement officers from over a dozen different local, state, and federal agencies, said the FBI in a Feb. 3 statement

The forests around the Great Lakes and upper Midwest have become a hotbed of marijuana grow operations that law enforcement believes are run by drug cartels. A 2010 Forest Service briefing memo, described the “disturbing new trend” in the Great Lakes states that approaches a par with the drug gang marijuana growing operations on California public lands.  In that state, Mexican drug gangs cultivate millions of dollars worth of the plant and have caused extensive environmental damage, as well as violence in local communities around the areas. Some environmental groups have said the Forest Service is “outgunned” in trying to deal with the problem.

The grow location in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest had initially been discovered in November of 2010 by hunters who reported the find to police, said the FBI. Police monitored the area last year to see if the growers would return to use the area again. After months of monitoring and surveillance, law enforcement officers raided the campsite of the suspected growers and seized over 9,400 marijuana plants that had been planted, fertilized, and watered by the men, said the FBI. Initially, four of the five men at the camp eluded capture until the following day when Burciaga arrived from Minnesota to pick them up. Sawyer County deputies saw Burciaga’s truck, which investigators were familiar with based on the surveillance over the summer, and stopped it as it headed back toward Minnesota, apprehending Burciaga and four of the suspects who had fled and spent the night in the forest.

The three remaining defendants, Norberto Burciaga, 40, St. Paul, MN, Jose Esqueda-Garcia, 19, Mexico, and Moises Lopez-Ontiveros, 21, Mexico, will be sentenced within the next two weeks, said the agency.

The charges against the defendants were the result of an investigation by a coalition of local, state and federal law enforcement, said the FBI.