This is topic Underground cave growers in TN in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
 
Has anyone else seen this? It's a grower in TN that built a very complex safehouse for their plants. I'm very impressed at how elaborate this was...I think they should gets points off of their jail time just because of their engineering skills...

Marijuana grower in underground caves
 
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
 
Wow, that's like an evil villian lair. I guess the whole secret hideout aspect didn't work though, since they got busted.

--Enigmatic
 
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
How did the people running this get caught, do you know?
 
Posted by Nell Gwyn (Member # 8291) on :
 
[Eek!] That's really...incredible. But if they had the money to build something that elaborate, couldn't they just as easily have set themselves up with a legal business that'd be just as profitable?

<-- knows almost nothing about large-scale drug operations, or drugs on any scale, for that matter
 
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
 
I don't really know anything else about this. A friend from work sent me the link.
 
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 
I don't know, but if I had to guess, I'd bet the very high power drain this place must have put on the grid might be some indicator.
 
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Yeah Karl, I could see that.

I'd love to buy that place. Not for pot growing, but just for the secret underground lair. How incredibly cool would it be to own that?
 
Posted by Boothby171 (Member # 807) on :
 
OMFG!

They have a hydraulic ram to open and close their vault door!
 
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
quote:
But if they had the money to build something that elaborate, couldn't they just as easily have set themselves up with a legal business that'd be just as profitable?
Judging by the amount of pot in those pictures, there's literally no legal means to make that much money with that little of an investment.
 
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
 
Human, are you a member of that forum? It looks pretty cool (busy too). Care to tell me a little bit about the people before I sign up (and apprently wait two weeks before posting)?
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
It would ALMOST be worth being Evil to have an Evil Lair like that! It's SOOOO COOOL!
 
Posted by Rich Lewis (Member # 9192) on :
 
Wow! Illegal or not, those are some folks that put some hard work into growing their business!
 
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
 
I'm not a member of the board, so I can't really tell you what to expect. I was just so impressed that I felt the need to share...
 
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
 
I thought some of you might be interested in the news link: http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/16405.asp

I got sent this in my email from a friend in Tennessee months ago.

-K
 
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Isn't a cave, like, an ideal environment for farming mushrooms? And wouldn't that be fairly profitable and a lot more legal?
 
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Depends on what kind of mushrooms.
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I do believe that the Canadian government grows marijuana (for medical use) in climate-controlled caves. I'll see if I can find a link.
 
Posted by dantesparadigm (Member # 8756) on :
 
How on Earth does someone not notice the kind of electrical bill they must run up having those lights on all day?

Or is that why they got caught?
 
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
 
Watch the video on the link I gave. They talked about power outages on the street, which is one of the things that tipped the police off.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
It isn't illegal to use that much electricity, as long as you pay the bill. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
Kwea, it's not illegal, but if you use huge amounts of electricity in a residential setting power companies will turn you in to the authorities as suspicious.

Wow, that is quite a setup those guys had!
 
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
 
They probably got caught by the electrical bill. Lots of times the heat signature will give away above ground grow ops, but with a cave I don't know how big a factor it would be. The weakest link is always the human one, though.

I agree with the mushroom option, although mine would be illegal. Mushrooms use much less electricity, and are at least as profitable on a small scale.
 
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
My little brother was a grower. He had the entire second floor/attic of the house he lived in filled with plants. I would have a hard time guessing how many plants there were total when I walked in, but there were TONS of them.

He estimated that he had 65,000 dollars worth. From those pics, I'd guess those growers have ten to thirty times as many plants as he had.

So somewhere in the range of $650,000 to $2,000,000 dollars worth those guys had. And that's one crop.

If those guys grew (legal) mushrooms down there, they might make that much in their lifetimes. Maybe.

Drug dealing (and growing) isn't very smart but it certainly is profitable until you get caught (which, of course, my brother did).
 
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
The man behind the whole thing was able to plead guilty to just a few of the charges, and will be sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in prison, about a third of which he'd probably serve.

The Tennessean article detailing it.

850 plants with a yield of 100 pounds every two months. In other words, X, your brother was probably low on his estimate (edit: never mind, I see that that's per crop).
 


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