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How Bees Revealed a Pot Farm Beneath the Maraschino Cherries
- stephengillie 11y agoBut the bees didn't reveal the cannabis farm. The Brooklyn DA used the bee incident as a pretext to search the farm and plant twice, while accompanying another agency, and used a third-hand 6-year-old tip to find where a hidden staircase was. And the rest of this story is so tragic.
- j_m_b 11y agoExactly. The bees were just a ruse for them to raid the factory. Tragic ending indeed.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoThe bees weren't just a ruse for them to raid the factory. They investigated him for illegal runoff based on speculation in the New York Times that that was how the bees were turning red, even though the cause of the red bees had already been determined to be something else. Usually, when you have a pretext to do something, at least the pretextual reason is, you know, true.
- coldtea 11y ago>Usually, when you have a pretext to do something, at least the pretextual reason is, you know, true. Which is a worse kind of lie that directly lying (as it cheapens truth into a mere pretext), and which he correctly characterized as a "ruse".
- mc32 11y agoWhat I don't get is he had a very successful cocktail cherry business. So he didn't need to run a million dollar illegal business which was a tiny fraction of the legal business.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ics 11y ago$20 million cherry business, $XX million cannabis business according to the article.
- x5n1 11y agoThey found a few pounds, they speculated (and they would not exaggerate would they, after spending years trying to nail him?) that he was doing $XX million in weed sales.
- logfromblammo 11y agoSome of the profits from the cherry business may have actually been laundered money from the cannabis business. The cherry business might not have been "very successful" on its own. Besides that, the larger legit business provided a great cover for the smaller illegal business. He didn't need to run the grow op to run the cherry factory, but he did need the cherry factory to run the grow op more easily. There's no way he could have run it undetected for at least six years in the heart of NYC without the cherries on top. I suspect that the cops had access to illegally obtained evidence, and the bee thing was the only way they had to legitimize what they already knew.
- mason55 11y ago> I suspect that the cops had access to illegally obtained evidence, and the bee thing was the only way they had to legitimize what they already knew. It's quite common and is called parallel construction[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- oldmanjay 11y agoThey only use parallel construction to protect you. Do you hate your own freedom so much that you'd criticize your authoritative betters?
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- DarkTree 11y agoEvery time an event like this happens, or kidnapped victims are revealed being hidden in a house for the past 15 years, or a previously unknown serial-killer is finally caught, it makes me wonder how many of these events are still carrying on unnoticed.
- hlfw0rd 11y agoHow do you relate cannabis plants with serial killers?
- DarkTree 11y agoI wasn't intentionally equating all of those scenarios. The only relation that they have is that they are hidden from society and illegal. The point I was trying to make is that if large operations like this are taking place behind the curtains of society, surely there are more that will eventually be revealed (or never at all) in the future.
- DanBC 11y agoModern slaves who are trapped in homes and forced to farm cannabis is a thing in England, so that's probably more common than you think over here. Here's an article from 2008. http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2008/11/cannabis-farms-children http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2008/11/cannabis-... And another from 2015. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0LU00P20150226 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0LU00P20150226
- hlfw0rd 11y agoI stand corrected. Wow..
- jessaustin 11y agoApparently prosecutors are more eager to prosecute slavery victims than actual slavers! How I wish I weren't surprised, but if they can stomach sending people to prison for growing pot, it's not such a step to sending people to prison for being forced to grow pot.
- rwmj 11y agoHow close to being legalized is pot in New York?
- hlfw0rd 11y agoNew York legalized cannabis for medical purposes in July of 2014. You should see dispensaries opening in January of 2016 (18 month implementation plan). http://nypost.com/2014/07/07/ny-becomes-23rd-state-to-allow-medical-marijuana/ http://nypost.com/2014/07/07/ny-becomes-23rd-state-to-allow-...
- cthalupa 11y agoI'm glad we're spending so many resources and so much time to find people growing pot in the US. It's time well spent to battle the stoner scourge, and people growing it domestically represent a much higher risk than dealing with drug dealers in Mexico. It's a bonus that we got this menace to society to commit suicide when confronted, too. He might have tried to fool us with his having a family, and working with the beekeepers to resolve the problem preventing them from producing honey, but the man even did cocaine. The streets are safer with him off of them. edit: yes, satire.
- nosuchthing 11y agoIf you're vying for satire, it's not immediately obvious. :( Poe's law is an Internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will, to some readers, be indistinguishable from sincere expressions of the parodied views.
- logfromblammo 11y agoOnce again, I'll endorse the use of the tilde ('~') as a punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm or satire. To use it, replace the end punctuation of a single sentence with the tilde, or wrap an entire block of text in two of them, like quotation marks. ~It's so very difficult to use.~ Fortunately, the previous post is written such that a Poe's Law check would probably confirm my suspicion of satire.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoThis is a terrible idea, given the existing use of a tilde at the end of a sentence to indicate general positive sentiment: "I loved the present! Thank you~~"
- logfromblammo 11y agoThat is literally the first time I have ever seen the tilde used in that way. I have seen it used to indicate sarcasm, satire, or snark on at least four separate web sites. In any case, we already have a mark for surprise or excitement: the exclamation point ('!'). No doubling up when we still don't have a generally accepted mark for insincerity.
- dandare 11y agoHow is this hacker news?
- asanagi 11y agoCareful! You're cruising for a shadowban with that line of inquiry.
- darkstar999 11y agoStraight from the HN guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." I found this interesting, therefore it is on topic.
- tomlongson 11y agoI also found it interesting, but was disappointed that the "link" was just a reason to avoid needing a search warrant. If the plants were the reason the bees were coming to the factory, that would be more interesting.
- x5n1 11y agoIt's crazy how obsessed these people are. They would not let up. And for what?
- chrisgd 11y agoEven more tragic considering the recent ruling about drug dogs. Police officer handling K-9, wants to please DA who wants to search so he does something that alerts the dog to please him? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/federal-appeals-court-drug-dog-thats-barely-more-accurate-than-a-coin-flip-is-good-enough/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/...
- zbyte64 11y agoThe guy employed parolees so they wouldn't turn to crime and he himself didn't have a criminal record. Sad he took his life.
- nathanm412 11y agoIt now seems more likely that he turned to parolees because he knew he could control them better and they probably already knew the business.
- faster 11y agoIt's fairly clear in the article that the parolees were not working on the grow side. "One investigator said Mondella’s employees were likely unaware of the doings in that stealth basement. These employees include parolees that Mondella was known to hire from the nearby housing project, giving them a chance to not let a crime define their lives."
- anon3_ 11y agoRelated (police pretexting): http://cryptome.org/police-pretext1.pdf http://cryptome.org/police-pretext1.pdf http://cryptome.org/police-pretext2.pdf http://cryptome.org/police-pretext2.pdf
- trhway 11y agoamong the big themes in this tragic story, a minor gem : "Cote went on, “Beekeepers (particularly the hipster versions) in Brooklyn sometimes (often?) lead a myopic sort of existence wherein only their world view, or their set of needs, is valid or important.”" while it may seem only hipster related, one can see how DA/LE behavior in this story pretty much lends itself to the same "myopic" description. And in general it is among the main characteristics of our species.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoSo... 1. Bees start to turn red, causing people to think of the maraschino cherry factory. They're tested and found to be carrying red die #40. 2. The cherry grower looks for help with all the bees coming into his factory. 3. The New York Times runs an article implying that the bees are red because they're harvesting factory runoff. 4. The bees are found to be harvesting from vats of cherries in transit within the factory. Those vats are sealed, and the red bee problem is no more. 5. The Brooklyn DA's Office notices the Times coverage. They've investigated the factory owner for marijuana production already, but failed to find anything they could stick him with. They suggest to the Department of Environmental Conservation that this merits an official check of the factory for illegal syrup runoff. 6. The DEC checks for illegal runoff, and also for marijuana. They find neither. 7. A new DA is elected and decides to drop unresolved cases. This prompts the Office to try one last time to get the cherry factory guy. 8. Although it is now definitively established that there was no illegal runoff and the bees were feeding on in-production vats (which they're not doing any more), the DA's Office gets the DEC to investigate the factory once again for, you guessed it, illegal syrup runoff. They justify this based on the old news coverage. 9. The DEC finds no illegal runoff. They do find marijuana this time, though. Truly, a high point in good governance. How exactly can the DEC investigate this guy for a problem that (a) it's already investigated and found no evidence of, and (b) is supported only by a theory that is already known to be false? :/
- monochromatic 11y ago> You have to think that were it not for the instantly accessible gun in an ankle holster, the moment of panic and perhaps shame might have just passed. He might even now be producing cherries with the method that became prevalent after Prohibition made alcohol as illegal as pot has been. Of course the anti-gun Daily Beast couldn't go an entire article without blaming a gun for something a person decided to do.
- enraged_camel 11y agoI downvoted you. Please don't derail this topic and turn it into a gun debate. Thanks. edit: never mind. judging by the downvotes, I guess people really enjoy their endless gun debates!
- peterwwillis 11y agoYou don't need to comment on why you downvoted.
- enraged_camel 11y agoI know, but I prefer giving feedback whenever possible. I personally hate being downvoted with no explanation. I call it "drive-by downvoting" and in my opinion it really degrades the experience of the community as a whole.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zabcik 11y agoThe point of having threaded comments is to allow new discussion to happen. I'm sure other top level comments won't be a gun debate; even better if you add your own thoughts. Only downvote things if they do not contribute to discussion whatsoever.
- starshadowx2 11y agoRegardless of being anti or pro-gun, they are completely right. If he had not had his gun with him it would have been impossible for him to shoot himself. Of course if he was really determined and it wasn't just a passing feeling he would've found another way, so I agree with you that you can't blame gun ownership on this.
- vacri 11y agoStrange that the article sounds puzzled at why he took his life, when it's clear that a drug kingpin would get a 'rest-of-your-life-and-more' sentence. Even if he got a 'lenient' sentence, the guy was 57 and would spend the rest of his healthy days behind bars. Not much of a mystery there.
- peterwwillis 11y agoNot just that. He ran the growing operation, meaning he was not the drug kingpin. They sell to the real drug dealers who handle the illegal distribution. If it was the largest pot operation, that means he was beholden to the largest drug dealers, who probably told him his family would pay if he ever talked. Hence killing himself before he could talk.
- S_A_P 11y agoI can't say anybody is better off now that this guy is "off the streets"
- jo6gwb 11y agoCan someone explain what these traps are? "One of the investigators noticed that a set of steel shelves was on wheels. He yanked on them and they did not roll. He then noted that they were held in place by magnets in the way of “traps,” the secret compartments used in cars to hide guns and drugs."