Crime & Safety

Report Says Hundreds of Marijuana Plants Taken from Johnston House

Federal authorities took hundreds of pot plants out of a Johnston home Wednesday. Officials also searched a second home nearby on Longboat Drive.

Federal agents carried hundreds of marijuana plants out of a Johnston house Wednesday morning, according to KCCI.com.

More than a dozen vehicles were outside the house at 7323 Longboat Drive Wednesday morning.

About 20 officers with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the state Division of Narcotics Enforcement and the Mid-Iowa Narcotics Task Force entered the house and took a man into custody, according to KCCI. Neighbors identify him as the homeowner who has lived in the home for three years, and kept to himself.

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Undercover officers removed from the house what appeared to be equipment involved in a marijuana growing operation including lights, pipes and plastic children's wading pools in which marijuana plants were growing.

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Johnston Police Chief Bill Vaughn told the Des Moines Register the house was the site of a marijuana-growing operation.

“I believe it was pretty significant, and the last I knew they are going to have agents at that property until later in the evening processing it,” Vaughn told the Register.

Authorities also seized materials following a search of a house down the street at 7212 Longboat Drive, KCCI reported.

Neighbors told KCCI at times they smelled a strong marijuana odor around the house at 7323 Longboat, but were surprised by the scope of the drug seizure.

Authorities have not commented on the investigation, and have not released information on the name of the man taken away in handcuffs from the first house.


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