This week, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) performed a raid on a distribution center as part of a crackdown on an interstate marijuana trafficking operation.
OBN says that a warehouse in Oklahoma City was raided this week because the facility was “being used as a distribution hub for a criminal organization trafficking millions of dollars in marijuana from Oklahoma farms to the out-of-state black market.”
As the warehouse raid was taking place, officials say that “OBN Agents simultaneously stopped a semi-truck leaving the location transporting nearly 7,000 pounds of marijuana in vegetable boxes bound for New York … the potential street value of this shipment was nearly $28 million dollars.”
OBN says that this week’s raid is connected to another raid that happened at a different Oklahoma City warehouse in April, which involved the similar interception of a semi-truck hauling 7,000 pounds of marijuana hidden in camera equipment boxes destined for New Jersey and New York.
“These criminal organizations arrange for loads of marijuana to be transported off farms across the state to warehouses in places like Oklahoma City. The marijuana is then repacked into boxes disguised as legitimate products and hauled in semi-trucks to their associates located across the United States,” said OBN Spokesman Mark Woodward.
“My agency is committed to targeting and dismantling these international trafficking organizations that are embedded in Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program. Not only are they responsible for black market marijuana trafficking but have been linked to numerous other crimes including homicides, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and world-wide money laundering,” stated OBN Director Donnie Anderson.
Multiple investigations related to these warehouse raids are ongoing, OBN says.