US seizes 100 'pot-growing' houses linked to China

Federal agents seized more than 100 homes in one of the largest residential drug busts in US history in a bid to combat Chinese-run marijuana operations, the government said today.

Hundreds of federal agents flooded California state capital Sacramento yesterday and today with local police, filing forfeiture actions against properties being used by Chinese drug traffickers.

"This was a large-scale operation, with millions of dollars coming into the US from China," Cindy Chen of the Internal Revenue Service, which was part of the raids, said in a statement from the Department of Justice.

"This criminal organisation used foreign money to purchase homes and turned them into marijuana grow houses; all at the cost of innocent neighbourhoods."
"They are a blight on our neighbourhoods and create an unsafe environment for the men, women, and children who live there."