
How Bees Revealed a Pot Farm Beneath the Maraschino Cherries - mukyu
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/how-bees-revealed-a-pot-farm-beneath-the-maraschino-cherries.html
======
stephengillie
But 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.

~~~
mc32
What 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.

~~~
logfromblammo
Some 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.

~~~
mc32
It says an informant tattled and then they walked a narc dog which triggered.
This enabled them to get a warrant.

~~~
jmeyerdev
Actually, FTA:

>The dog became alert, indicating it sensed marijuana.

>“We figured we had something,” the investigator says.

>But they did not have enough to secure a search warrant.

~~~
mc32
My bad, you're right. They went in with the excuse of investigating illegal
dumping.. That's when they came across the hidden door and stairwell --but
that was instigated by the triggered dog. Else they were going to wrap up the
investigation.

------
cthalupa
I'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.

~~~
logfromblammo
Once 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
This 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
That 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.

~~~
thaumasiotes
How did you get "surprise or excitement" from "general positive sentiment"?

~~~
logfromblammo
It goes the other way around. The exclamation mark is supposed to denote
surprise or excitement. General positive sentiment is represented more closely
by '!' than sarcasm or satire is represented by _anything_.

There are only a few symbols on the default US keyboard that are potentially
eligible for promotion to punctuation. If you want "general positive
sentiment" to have its own mark, why not use '+'? Plus for positivity. Tilde
for _not exactly this_ , which is close to its use in mathematics.

------
thaumasiotes
So...

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? :/

------
chrisgd
Even 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/...](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/)

------
monochromatic
> 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
I 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
You don't need to comment on why you downvoted.

~~~
enraged_camel
I 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.

------
trhway
among 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.

------
x5n1
It's crazy how obsessed these people are. They would not let up. And for what?

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zbyte64
The 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
It 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
It'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."

------
DarkTree
Every 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.

~~~
DanBC
Modern 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-...](http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-
reform/2008/11/cannabis-farms-children)

And another from 2015.
[http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0LU00P20150226](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0LU00P20150226)

~~~
jessaustin
Apparently 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.

------
S_A_P
I can't say anybody is better off now that this guy is "off the streets"

------
rwmj
How close to being legalized is pot in New York?

~~~
hlfw0rd
New 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-...](http://nypost.com/2014/07/07/ny-becomes-23rd-state-to-allow-
medical-marijuana/)

------
vacri
Strange 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
Not 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.

------
jo6gwb
Can 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."

------
anon3_
Related (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)

------
dandare
How is this hacker news?

~~~
darkstar999
Straight 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
I 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.

