Drug Seizures

FAMED for the biggest trees in the world, Sequoia National Park is now No. 1 in another flora department: marijuana growing, with more land carved up by pot growers than any other park. Parts of Sequoia, including the Kaweah River drainage and areas off Mineral King Road, are no-go zones for visitors and park rangers during the April-to-October growing season, when drug lords cultivate pot on an agribusiness-scale fit for the Central Valley.

A foul odor from a garage in a Ladera Ranch apartment complex led authorities to what they described as the largest seizure of PCP ever made in Orange County. Sheriff's deputies seized 8 gallons of the hallucinogen, valued at $12.2 million, Saturday from a garage allegedly used by Taylor Winston Wright, 37, who escaped from deputies after handing them his driver's license, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said Monday.

Rangers at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona say they've seized nearly a ton of marijuana from backpackers since Nov. 20. Organ Pipe's 330,000 acres include 31 miles of Sonoran Desert along the Mexico border. As scrutiny of nearby border cities has increased in recent years, the area has emerged as a favored territory of smugglers bringing drugs and people into the U.S.

A special anti-narcotics task force raided drug laboratories in eastern Afghanistan, seizing more than 15 tons of opium, officials said. The opium, one of the largest hauls in recent years, could have been refined into about 1.5 tons of heroin. The raids took place Wednesday in Nangarhar province's Achin district, an Interior Ministry statement said, adding that Afghan Special Narcotics Force agents also destroyed 24 opium presses used to refine the drug.

The Coast Guard and Navy seized 30,000 pounds of cocaine from a boat off South America's Pacific coast this month in what authorities called the largest-ever seizure of the drug at sea. On Sept. 17, the Curts, a Navy frigate based in San Diego, intercepted the Lina Maria, a Cambodian-flagged fishing boat, about 300 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. A Coast Guard team boarded the boat and found 30,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in a sealed ballast tank.

Backed by 4,000 police officers, the Colombian government seized control of the nation's largest pharmacy chain, saying its creation and expansion had been funded by cocaine sales. Prosecutors and police took over more than 400 stores in 28 cities carrying the name Drogas la Rebaja, or Discount Drugs.

Federal and local authorities seized 15 pounds of opium Tuesday and arrested eight San Fernando Valley-area men on suspicion of selling and possessing the drug. Those arrested were Alfred Degregorian, 51; his 35-year-old son, Alain Degregorian; Sarkhadoun Baitzaya, 45; Jakob Yakhobzadeghan, 45; Behnam Azimi, 45; Soleman Yashar, 54; Bijan Yousefi, 46; and Saied Makabi Hamadani, 49.

The owner of a Huntington Beach-based moving company has been arrested on suspicion of cultivating large amounts of high-grade marijuana in a Costa Mesa warehouse, police said. Paul Harriman, 42, owner of the Starving College Students Moving Co., is also accused of stealing electricity from Southern California Edison to operate a greenhouse that took up the warehouse's entire upper floor, said Sgt. Mike Ginther, a spokesman for the Costa Mesa Police Department.

U.S. sailors seized more than 200 pounds of heroin and methamphetamines Saturday after an Arab sailing crew in the northern Arabian Sea tossed bags of the drugs overboard. Authorities were investigating whether Al Qaeda was linked to the shipment. The seizure came a day after the Navy said it had confiscated nearly 2 tons of hashish that was believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.