Two women have been arrested on charges of holding four brothers captive at an illegal marijuana farm in Northern California and forcing them to work at gunpoint for six months, police said Wednesday.
(FOX)- The two women are suspected of living in the United States without proper documentation.
The men told police they ran away in July from the secluded pot-growing operation in the small Sierra Nevada foothills town of West Point after overhearing they would be killed once all the marijuana was harvested, Calaveras County Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Macedo said.
Neither Guadalupe Sierra Arellano, 43, nor Medarda Urbieta, 44, entered pleas during a court appearance in San Andreas, California.
Macedo said investigators are looking into whether suspects have ties to any Mexican drug cartels. Authorities said they found a religious shrine popular among Mexican drug traffickers and cartels during a search of a Modesto home in connection with the case.
Brian Chavez-Ochoa, a lawyer representing Arellano, denied his client had any connections to cartels and said it appears the site was maintained and cultivated by locals.
David Singer, a lawyer representing Urbieta, didn’t return a call. Both women remain in jail on $800,000 bail each.
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