Federal agents dismantle pot-growing network

Federal agents say they have dismantled dozens of marijuana-growing operations centered on a pair of King County gardening stores, arrested more than a dozen people and seized nearly 15,000 pot plants.

Prosecutors say a pair of indictments unsealed Wednesday are aimed not just at growers but also at the suppliers and financiers of a burgeoning indoor marijuana-growing industry around Puget Sound.

In addition to the garden stores in Tukwila and Auburn, Internal Revenue Service agents searched a Kent mortgage brokerage that prosecutors believe provided loans to help would-be growers purchase homes for their operations. Agents also searched the homes and cars of the brokerage's owners.

The brokerage owners have not been indicted, although federal prosecutors unsealed a 74-page warrant detailing a series of "suspicious transactions" involving the company and accused pot growers, and said an investigation is ongoing.

Attempts to contact the mortgage-company owners Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The search warrant alleges that 19 of the 27 homes raided by agents over the past 13 months in the investigation dubbed "Operation Green Reaper" had been financed through the Kent brokerage.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents, working with local law enforcement, indicted and arrested Thiet Van Tran, the owner of Scitek Garden Supply in Auburn, and Quyen The Nguyen, the owner of Greenhouse & Garden Supply in Tukwila.

The companies were shut down and agents seized machinery and materiel associated with indoor marijuana cultivation, according to prosecutors and court documents. Search warrants served Wednesday allege the companies provided equipment, offered advice and even sold "starter plants." Tran and Nguyen are charged with conspiracy and money laundering.

Twelve others — mostly accused growers or others involved in the garden shops — also were named in federal indictments. Seattle DEA Special Agent in Charge Arnold Moorin said several others are charged in state court.

"We are going after the individuals behind the scenes that make these [grow operations] possible," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett said at a news conference Wednesday.

Bartlett said there has been an "exponential increase" in indoor growing operations in Washington state as Asian and biker gangs in British Columbia traditionally associated with importing "B.C. Bud" into the U.S. are being frustrated by tighter security at the U.S.-Canadian border. Moorin said agents have seized marijuana from 450 grow houses in the Seattle area in the past two years.

Over the 13-month span of the investigation, agents shut down 27 home-based growing operations from Everett to Puyallup. In every case, the apparatus and materiel to grow the pot came from either Scitek or Greenhouse, according to the indictments.

Prosecutors said the investigation began when agents noticed Scitek garden-shop advertisements in Vietnamese-community newspapers that had marijuana-leaf logos and photographs of specialized pot-growing equipment. Agents recovered bags of pot-plant stems and other waste in Scitek's trash.

Scitek, the larger of the operations, had nearly $1 million in cash move through its bank accounts between August 2007 and February of this year, according to court papers. If you take into account the marijuana grown and sold by drug dealers using the company as a supplier, Moorin said, the dollar figure involved is nearly $8 million.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com