Lyon County Sheriff Pope’s Message of the Week: October 4, 2024

This week, the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office Investigations division completed an investigation that led to the seizure of 3,500 pounds of illegal marijuana and closed down a major operation in Silver Springs. Several questions and some pushback to this operation on social media and in the news media require a response from the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office.

The illegal marijuana operation was being operated by Hispanic individuals with direct ties to Mexico and international drug trafficking organizations. Of the 10 individuals arrested, two were American citizens, one had a green card, and seven were illegal aliens. ICE was able to put detainers on three of the eight Mexican nationals, and the rest did not have an extensive enough criminal history to put detainers on.

This operation was taking in money from illegal sales of marijuana and transferring that money to individuals in Mexico. Several aspects of this investigation are ongoing and will most likely be completed by our Federal partners.

These illegal marijuana grows contain a variety of illegal chemicals used for pests, vegetation, and animal elimination. Many of these chemicals are illegal in the United States and pose a danger to the teams that eradicate these illegal grows.

The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office and partner agencies cannot afford for transnational drug trafficking organizations to gain a foothold in the region. This operation needed to be shut down as soon as possible, and our investigations team and their partners did an excellent job doing so. These operations bring an unwanted threat and danger to the communities they operate in.

Another common sentiment expressed regarding our press release was, “Start shutting down meth labs instead.” To our community, there are no meth labs in Lyon County, there might be “Gatorade bottle” labs, but no major labs are operating in our Community. Few labs are operating in the United States in general. Nearly 100% of the methamphetamine found in the United States comes from Mexico. I worked narcotics for eleven years and saw one Gatorade lab in that entire time. The abundance of methamphetamine in the United States and its availability has made meth labs obsolete and more trouble than it is worth.

I want to thank the following agencies for working with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office; it is a team and regional effort to ensure our community safety:

Carson City Sheriff’s Office SWAT, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office SWAT, Central Lyon County Fire Department, United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), United States Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Nevada State Police Investigations Division, Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board and Battleborn Medivac.

The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office will continue aggressively targeting those who choose a life of crime over our quality of life.

Respectfully,

Sheriff Brad Pope