SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The four brothers were badly beaten, cold and terrified for their lives when they appeared before dawn at a stranger’s Northern California door begging for help.
Hours earlier, they had fled a marijuana farm in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where they said they were held captive for months and forced to tend pot plants at gun point. They told police they escaped after overhearing plans being made to kill them after the harvest was complete.
California and other marijuana-growing regions are in the middle of their annual harvest, which attracts tens of thousands of temporary workers with promises of big and quick paydays. But authorities warned Thursday that the industry is still an underground economy that is largely unregulated, which leads to horrific abuses of pot farm workers.
Authorities say they are searching for two men who helped keep the men in captivity, including the brothers’ nephew, and investigating whether the large-scale operation had connections to Latin American drug cartels. Two women accused of holding the brothers captive were arrested last week.
A day after California police made public details of the brothers’ ordeal, Colorado authorities on Thursday said they are investigating whether Chinese farmhands possibly in the country illegally were forced to work at a large marijuana operation in the western part of the state.