OSP: ‘Epic amount’ of illegal marijuana seized at 5 White City warehouses, valued at $500 million

WHITE CITY, Ore. (KTVZ) – A two-day raid on five large warehouses in White City late this week turned up about 250 tons of illegal, processed marijuana, “an epic amount” with a "conservative street value" of about $500 million, Oregon State Police reported Saturday.

The OSP's Southwest Region Drug Enforcement Section (DES) Team served a search warrant Thursday in the 13000 block of Antelope Road in the southern Oregon city, troopers said.

The location consisted of five industrial-sized warehouses zoned for commercial use, they said.

More than 100 people were initially detained, identified, interviewed and released, and according to OSP, “Several of the individuals were migrant workers living on-site in sub-par living conditions, without running water.”

During the operation, OSP reported, “an epic amount of illegal, processed marijuana and a firearm were seized."

"The DES Team’s conservative estimation on the amount of processed marijuana seized was approximately 500,000 lbs., which depending on where it would be exported to, has a conservative street value of somewhere around $500 million," the news release stated, adding, "This is a very involved investigation and will be ongoing for several weeks. OSP will be releasing more information when available." 

The OSP SWR DES team was assisted by the Josephine Marijuana Enforcement Team (JMET) of Josephine County, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Medford Office, the Basin Interagency Narcotics Team (BINET) of Klamath County, the Illegal Marijuana Enforcement Team (IMET) of the Medford Police Department-Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and Jackson County Fire District No. 3.