PERRIS, Calif.—Riverside County sheriff’s deputies seized about 200 pounds of illegal cannabis from a house in the Perris area on Nov. 4.

Sgt. Jeremy Parsons, who led the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET), described the raid to The Epoch Times at the site as deputies hauled about 210 pounds of partially processed, illegally grown marijuana from the house.

He estimated that if the black-market weed had been completely trimmed, processed, packaged, and ready to sell, its street value would have been $100,000 to $300,000, depending on quality.

Deputies shouted repeatedly that they were at the house to serve a search warrant, but when no one answered, they entered and found about 200 marijuana plants.

“We forced entry into the home and confirmed there was nobody inside the house,“ Parsons said. ”The whole house is set up for marijuana grow. Nobody’s living there. The plants had been recently harvested, meaning they’ve been cut, and they were hanging it to dry inside the house.”

The sheriff’s office received a complaint about the smell of marijuana in the community, and MET investigated the area to find the origin of the odor, he said.

“The whole garage was converted to a grow, so it had grow trays, fans, lighting, a sophisticated irrigation system on timers, where they would be automatically watered,“ Parsons said. ”All the lights were on timers. They automatically come on and off. Two rooms inside the house were also converted to grow rooms with the same setup.”

Personnel from Southern California Edison were also on the scene to inspect a wall that was broken away behind the electrical meter.

“We’re not electricians, but we called Edison out and they confirmed that this location was stealing power, basically bypassing the meter,” he said.

Santa Ana Regional Water Board investigators also inspected the property but didn’t uncover any water-related violations, Parsons said.

Sheriff’s deputies found a threatening note at an illegal marijuana grow site in the Perris area, Calif., on Nov. 4, 2025. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Deputies found a handwritten note inside the house that read: “PAY UP! Your not cut for this. the choice is yours. you want problems you got em. Pay or get [expletive].”

Parsons said it’s not known whether the note has anything to do with the marijuana grow.

“Obviously, it’s a threatening note and it’s inside of a marijuana grow site, ”he said. “And we do know that marijuana cultivation sites can sometimes attract violence. That’s a big issue for us, and a big reason that we’re out here fighting this.”

Raids on illegal indoor grows help make communities safer by eliminating the risk of violence and fire hazards from electrical power theft.

Illegal growers involved at this site were using about 10 times as much electricity as an average house in the neighborhood, Parsons said.

Deputies don’t always know whether cartels are involved in smaller illegal grows, which can run the gamut from organized crime to mom-and-pop operations growing marijuana and selling it locally to support themselves “and maybe growing more than they’re allowed,” he said.

No one was arrested at the site, and the investigation is ongoing, he said.

California has two different systems under the Department of Cannabis Control—one that allows people to grow a small amount of marijuana for personal use and another that allows people to get properly licensed to grow marijuana and sell it commercially.

“You can grow a small amount for yourself—six plants for recreational use,” Parsons said.

A sheriff’s deputy at an illegal marijuana grow in Riverside County, Calif., on Nov. 4, 2025. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Theoretically, under the state’s track-and-trace system, legally cultivated cannabis products purchased at licensed dispensaries can be “traced back to the plant, to the seed, to the place where it was grown.”

Black market growers are putting the legal cannabis industry in jeopardy by undercutting legal growers, he said. They also pose a danger to communities by creating the potential for violence, fire hazards, pollution, and personal health risks.

“What we have here is a black-market cultivation site where it’s unregulated. In this one, we didn’t find prohibited chemicals, but in a lot of them, we do,” Parsons said.

People who use illegally grown marijuana “have no idea what they’re getting,” he said.

They don’t know if the product they’re consuming contains harmful chemicals because it’s completely unregulated, whereas the legal cannabis sold at licensed dispensaries is supposed to have gone through a system of checks and balances from “seed to plant to packaging to distribution,” he said.

Illegal growers can use “whatever chemicals” and “whatever electrical bypasses” they want, and they’re undercutting people who went through the legal process to become properly licensed, Parsons said.

The MET is a full-time unit dedicated to investigating marijuana-related crimes in Riverside County, Parsons said.

“On average,” he said, “we probably serve around 150 to 200 search warrants a year.”

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running for California governor in 2026, has vowed to crack down on drug traffickers and put public safety above politics. He was first elected sheriff in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.