A marijuana grow house was shut down in Port St. Lucie Saturday, according to St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.
Detectives found 145 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $580 thousand dollars inside a home located in the 5200 block of NW East Piper Circle.
“Intelligence gathered by our undercover narcotics detectives led to the identification of the house and through additional investigative efforts, a search warrant was obtained and executed, St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said. “In the end, an elaborate marijuana grow operation was shut down, removing this type of criminal element from our community.”
Sheriff Mascara said three bedrooms in the house were converted into cultivation rooms and a bathroom was converted into a chiller room for climate and moisture control.
“Operations such as this reduce property values and spawn additional criminal activities making neighborhoods unsafe,” Mascara said.
According to the sheriff, 29-year-old Julio Cesar Hernandez Garcia of Davenport, Florida, was arrested and charged with trafficking and cultivating marijuana. He was booked into the St. Lucie County Jail.