Busted: Stories, Information, and Details to Help You Avoid & Prevent Arrest

[Cannabis Motiva]

As a new member here, I've created this thread for one reason: To offer specific knowledge to the community, via member experience, that can help them from being busted.

To put it simply, I wanted to create a single thread where people who have been busted can provide us with details (the more the better) of HOW they were busted. For example, many of these details may not actually become transparent until court proceedings, so I'd encourage anyone who is able to share their stories.

I know many people are busted by knock & talks, and another decent amount due to speaking to others about their grow. However, there are many busts that happen for other reasons such as a fire, FLIR detection, an emergency where 911 was dispatched to the grow location, etc..

Furthermore, things like faulty ventilation and/or smell control malfunction, DEA or police pretending to be public service or utility workers, the setup of field cameras by authorities (and the list goes on and on) and more. It DOES HAPPEN.

The idea is to acquire as much information as possible, from people with firsthand experience who can tell us exactly how & why they were busted. This information can be very valuable to us all, and hopefully open our eyes to the seemingly endless possibilities that exist when it comes to being busted. This is especially important for those of us who keep tight lips, have extremely covert operations that seem foolproof, and have still gotten busted.

Please, if you have legitimate & detailed info about a friend or someone you know who was busted, please feel free to contribute the circumstances involving their bust(s) as well.

I hope that this thread is a good addition to the Security & Legal Issues area of the forum, and I hope it's able to offer an abundance of information that continues to grow.

 

[Cannabis Motiva]

This is such common sense that I shouldn't even have to post it, but just to get things rolling.. This is quoted from another user on the forum.

DO NOT EVER TELL ANYONE ABOUT YOUR GROW!!!!

NEVER EVER, EVER Tell anyone!!!!! PLEASE, PLEASE keep yourselves safe.

I can not emphasize that enough. Not even close friends that are fellow growers. If anyone knows that you are growing you are susceptible to being caught.

I will share an experience of mine. 4 years ago I had this experience and it was not pleasant. Quite possible one of the worst times of my life. Here it is.....

I have been growing for 10 years or so. I had a friend that was also a grower. He had grown for almost as long as myself. We had been very tight, shared growing knowledge and obviously compared buds. I would have considered him to be a very good friend. I had known him for over 20+ years. He got busted. He got busted in a big way. He got nailed with 100+ plants 15+ lbs. of grass stashed in his house. He got busted with all of the things that would go along with a fairly substantial grow operation he had, lights, scales, nutes, hydro system, soil, hash, lots of paraphenalia, bongs, etc. Anyway, in order to save his ass he ratted me out. When he ratted me out he did not figure on his wife having a moral center. She was also a friend of mine as well as my wifes. She placed a phone call to my wife soon after they took my ex-friend, her husband away to jail to let us know that he was busted and the cops were interogating him he gave us up to save his ass.

So that night I went to my grow operation to get to work right away on taking the whole thing down. It took quite a while to dismantle and pack up and destroy what I had in the works. I had to find a place to store my stuff and then I had to take all of my stash out of my house and move it to another spot. I had to totally clense my house. No bongs, no seeds, no stems, no ashes, no roaches, no hash stash no nothing!!! I hired a cleaning service first thing the next moring to clean my grow location as well as my house. Truely a major pain in the ass to take care of it all. The next evening the police arrived at my home. Warrant in hand. They thought they were so slick. God I hate LEO, they truly are the scum bags of the earth. The said that they knew I had a growing operation and they had a search warrant for my house. They also had a warrant for the address for my growing operation and were conducting the search at the same time they were at my house. I was elated to let let them into my house. I knew I had nothing not even an old stem or a roach at my house. When they started looking around they began to realize that I had been tipped off. They were really PISSED off.

I know I was followed by an undercover for the next month or so. I also know that they pulled all of my old electric records for my house as well as my grow location. They pulled my phone records as well as my bank records. They tried to come back at me with those records to get me to explain why I used so much electricity. They wanted to know about every little cash deposit I had made at my bank(of which there were a few but never more than a hundred or so dollars, easily explained) They tried to get me to slip up anyway that they could. They were convinced that they were going to catch me.

I had to keep my growing operation shut down for almost a year before I felt comfortable enough to start back up again. When I did start back up I did so with only a few plants so it would be just a misdemeanor. The whole experience taught me a huge lesson.

The whole point of my post is that if you are growing, I truely believe that you can trust no one with the knowledge that you are growing. I thought I had a true friend, I mean we had talked before about what would happen if one of us got busted and we always said that we would never narc on each other. Well, I found out the hard way.

NEVER TRUST ANYONE!!!!!! thanks for letting me share.

 

[_tessarecting]

If you grow in an apartment:

Dont let the res overflow and pour down your neighbors walls

Dont flush perlite and ganja leaves down the toilet and cause the septic to back up

I probably got more but im high

 

[St. Phatty]

One good place to get arrested for possession - the big nature park north of Golden Gate Park in SF.

I got caught on Memorial Day 1989, with about an 1/8 in a tuna fish can.

Judge threw it out.

"OK, put your hands on the 69 bug ... you call that thing a car ?"

"It has head-rests".

"Here's your ticket".

 

[The Revolution]

Police came into my fathers house when I was about 15. I was home alone. I was already growing indoors for the passed few years and outdoors aswell to supply my father with his meds and honing my craft. I had a 400w flower room upstairs, a small mother/clone cabinet and another veg and 1000w flower in the basement. Police showed up at the door for an arrest warrant for a person who didn't even live there. I informed them this person has never lived there and I was the only one home. They had the warrant n wanted to check. I read over and signed the warrant, it was indeed an arrest warrant only not a search warrant. During the search they found some trim laying out, hightimes mags and notes from the phenotypes and diff varieties in my grow. They broke into a locked room to find the 400w flowering room w 6 large plants a cpl weeks into flower. They started searching through drawers n cabinets..yea searching for this person as if they were hiding in a dresser drawer..they never found the 180w hps cab i had hidden under an aquarium shrouded by a large blanket, and never went in the basement. They began hauling the plants out, and asking me questions. Even though the room was attached to my bedroom I stuck to my guns, I "had no idea what was in that room and who put it there.." "no they're not mine, no they're not my fathers" . They told me if I just signed the statement saying they were my plants, or they were my father's plants they'd drop the possession charges and only charge me with manufacturing..lol manufacturing??? The plants grew themselves..there's no manufacturing process going on here! I played dumb with them to they gave up n finally left. They began the next day w the harassing phone calls trooper saying the same stuff calling me with recorded phone calls saying I was being charged and to just admit it.. I told them I hadn't been notified of any charges and until I did receive a charge we didn't need to talk, and at that they could speak with my lawyer. I ended to conversation by telling them if you're going to charge me than please do that until than please stop harassing me by phone! They knew I was no dummy and I knew the laws at that point. They didn't specify cannabis or plants on the warrant therefore it was an illegal search and seizure
they knew and I knew unless I admitted guilt to the plants they could do nothing but confiscate the things..Thankfully I grew up w outlaw's and At this young age I was well versed in the laws and everyone should be.

 

[stoned-trout]

snitches and rats ..I hate em....yeehaw

 

[armedoldhippy]

never carry more than you can quickly eat, never hesitate to eat it if needed, never smoke weed while driving on a dead-end road, & remember this - saying "yes, sir" , "no, sir" , and "thank you, officer" can save you a shit-pot of trouble & money. most LEO are NOT stupid, and are much more lenient if you do not insult their intelligence. nobody likes a fucking smart-ass...nobody!

 

[_tessarecting]

I like calling them lieutennents...lol

 

[Lochinvar]

hey all,
i got a story. 13 years ago, in my podunk county, we had a sheriff that was a real piece of shite. Dennis Downum was his name. i had just moved to the area with my brother and his wife. we had 15 plants up the hill behind my girlfriends house. my g friends parents lived next door and hated me. long story short, the cops showed up and cut our plants while i was working out of county. they also searched the whole house and stole my rec.
anyway, g friend calls me up and says the cops just left and took all my weed. I show up an hour later to check things out. deputies are at the house packing my shit up. i show them my other copy of my rec and they begin to hang my nugs back up on the strings and act like they did not know i had a rec. they tell me that my pot is the best theve ever seen and inform me of the fact that we have both been in this buisness for a long time and that we will be seeing a lot of each other in the future.

funny thing was, is that was my first crop ever! f%$K the man

 

[The Revolution]

thats wild LOCH>>> not something u ever expect...TO have the pigs returning your herb. HA. And the compliments are always nice too!

 

[Cannabis Motiva]

If you grow in an apartment:

Dont let the res overflow and pour down your neighbors walls

Dont flush perlite and ganja leaves down the toilet and cause the septic to back up

I probably got more but im high

Yeah, those are pretty good tips! hahahahha.. Especially the toilet one.

 

[Cannabis Motiva]

Police came into my fathers house when I was about 15. I was home alone. I was already growing indoors for the passed few years and outdoors aswell to supply my father with his meds and honing my craft. I had a 400w flower room upstairs, a small mother/clone cabinet and another veg and 1000w flower in the basement. Police showed up at the door for an arrest warrant for a person who didn't even live there. I informed them this person has never lived there and I was the only one home. They had the warrant n wanted to check. I read over and signed the warrant, it was indeed an arrest warrant only not a search warrant. During the search they found some trim laying out, hightimes mags and notes from the phenotypes and diff varieties in my grow. They broke into a locked room to find the 400w flowering room w 6 large plants a cpl weeks into flower. They started searching through drawers n cabinets..yea searching for this person as if they were hiding in a dresser drawer..they never found the 180w hps cab i had hidden under an aquarium shrouded by a large blanket, and never went in the basement. They began hauling the plants out, and asking me questions. Even though the room was attached to my bedroom I stuck to my guns, I "had no idea what was in that room and who put it there.." "no they're not mine, no they're not my fathers" . They told me if I just signed the statement saying they were my plants, or they were my father's plants they'd drop the possession charges and only charge me with manufacturing..lol manufacturing??? The plants grew themselves..there's no manufacturing process going on here! I played dumb with them to they gave up n finally left. They began the next day w the harassing phone calls trooper saying the same stuff calling me with recorded phone calls saying I was being charged and to just admit it.. I told them I hadn't been notified of any charges and until I did receive a charge we didn't need to talk, and at that they could speak with my lawyer. I ended to conversation by telling them if you're going to charge me than please do that until than please stop harassing me by phone! They knew I was no dummy and I knew the laws at that point. They didn't specify cannabis or plants on the warrant therefore it was an illegal search and seizure
they knew and I knew unless I admitted guilt to the plants they could do nothing but confiscate the things..Thankfully I grew up w outlaw's and At this young age I was well versed in the laws and everyone should be.

So basically you signed the arrest warrant, knowing that even if they did find the plants, it wouldn't hold up???? Not bad for a 15 year old, except that you failed to think about how you were now flagged.. I guess it doesn't really matter at that age but I sure as hell wouldn't have let them in, especially as a minor..

Good work not admitting they were yours though.. They didn't even want to waste the time on charging you since they knew it wouldn't fly in court.. Nowadays, they'd arrest someone regardless, and just let 'em deal with it in court.