Three Cuban nationals were arrested after allegedly running a marijuana growing operation in the “sanctuary” of Chester County, Pennsylvania for a Mexican drug cartel.
Berto Quinones, 41, 34-year-old Yordanky Hevia-Martinez, and 46-year-old William Delgado–all from Cuba–were arrested by local authorities after they visited Quinones’ residence with a search warrant, according to CBS Philly.
Authorities “could literally smell raw marijuana when they got to within a couple of hundred feet within the residence,” according to Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan.
That is when authorities seized more than 100 marijuana plants that were set to produce 200 pounds of marijuana for a Mexican drug cartel.
“They also found a marmoset monkey in among all the marijuana,” Hogan told the media. “It’s funny, all of these hardcore drug guys who came in the investigation not to tell us that there were over 100 plants of marijuana in there but to say there’s a really cute monkey in there.”
Beside seizing the marijuana plants, authorities also took in tools at the residence used to manage the grow site; including fertilizer, fans, and sun lamps.
The Cuban nationals, according to authorities, have ties to Mexico and were just one facet of a much larger operation across the U.S. for cartels.
All three men are being held in the Chester County Prison on drug trafficking charges.
Chester County, which neighbors Montgomery County, is a sanctuary jurisdiction which shields criminal illegal immigrants from being deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Most recently, Montgomery County, also a sanctuary, has garnered massive backlash nationwide after two illegal immigrant teens allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl in a public school bathroom, as Breitbart News reported.
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened funding for sanctuary locales, Breitbart News reported.
“I strongly urge our nation’s states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce immigration laws and to rethink these policies,” Sessions said. “Such policies make their cities and states less safe. Public safety as well as national security are at stake and put them at risk of losing federal dollars.”
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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