This is a YouTube video titled "Hiding ILLEGAL EMPIRE From The COPS" containing a detailed personal narrative by a speaker named Mike about his experiences running an illegal cannabis growing operation, evading law enforcement, and eventually quitting due to the risks involved. The content is a monologue or interview-style recount without multiple speakers named Chris Collins.
I was having parties at 17 years old in my apartment, charging people $5 a head to get in, buying a keg, getting an older person to buy a keg of beer. And then I would sell solo cups. The way I used to do it.
Is I would sell the solo cups.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you get a solo cup when you walk in. So we were doing what I was doing whatever I could to get by. You know, we were in the retail business for five years, so we were doing that in the meantime. It was still a struggle, you know, to make it. Then we met a mutual friend of our. I met a mutual friend of ours, Mike, and he came into the waterbed store to buy a waterbed. I sold it to him, and when we went to his apartment to set it up, his roommate pulled out a joint and said, hey, you guys want to smoke a joint? Sure. Lit the joint up. I tasted. I said, I could sell whatever. As much as you can get of this, I could sell it. So Mike and I started a relationship, and I ended up becoming his partner after a year of working with him, and we were now growing cannabis together. Can you.
Can you talk about how sophisticated that operation was?
It was. Yeah, it was pretty sophisticated. We talked about it on Mike's podcast as well. You know, we were doing counter surveillance on the police. We had police scanners, antennas on the roof with voice activated tape recorders and getting license plates on them, following them, knowing everything that they were doing, you know, so, yeah, it was pretty sophisticated. But the DEA got involved at one point, and they were after Mike. Well, they only knew Mike's name through an informant that used to be a partner, and so Mike had to take off. So when Mike took off, was the.
Informant undercover or did they get flipped?
He got busted and then flipped. Yeah. He wasn't an informant or he wasn't undercover? No. And he didn't know my last name, and he didn't know our other partner, Dwayne's last name. So they knew Mike. They knew where Mike lived. So Mike had to take off. He went to California. I continued to grow. I grew on the black market for 23 years, including the six years with Mike. That was pretty much my life. I was. I became, you know, after Mike left, I became the boss.
And during all this, did you close the waterbed?
Yes. One of the guys that worked for us, Larry, got busted selling weed, and they followed them from the waterbed store, and the people that we had the lease with said, hey, you can't sell illegal drugs out of the Store, So we're gonna shut you down. So we had no choice but to shut the store down. Yeah.
So when you were starting to get heat like that, did you get nervous or.
Yeah, Yeah, I got nervous. So it brings me to 2008. 2008, I had. We had six houses, but three houses that were actually. We were growing in. And I didn't listen to my police scanner on the way to the house. I was listening to a hockey program. And so I pulled into the house, did my business. Couple of the guys that. That were with us left, and they had. They had more. They had weed with them. But the cops weren't following them. They were following me. I didn't know it at the time until I got back in the car. I started driving down the driveway, and I heard. I turned the scanner on when I left, and I heard the excursions going down the driveway, and I said, oh, God, please let it be someone else. And I turned left. And he said, you just turned left. I said, oh, God. So they were following me in an airplane. So I'm driving all. You know. I didn't know what to do. We're in a rural area, farm. A lot of farmland and stuff. And I was panicking. I had, I think, four ounces of weed with me and six. A little over six grand.
Did you ditch it? Ditch the weed?
So, yeah. So I'm being followed by an airplane. I figured out the airplane thing because I heard it above me. And so I rolled the window down, I heard the airplane, and I'm like, okay, I gotta get rid of this. Yeah. And I'm thinking that they're closing in on cars. They're gonna be coming to get me. And so I drove down this driveway, and I had the six grand in a white garbage bag, and I drove down the driveway, and I threw it out the window into a bush. And I heard on the scanner, he just threw something in the bush. And I went, oh, God. You know, so then I drive up. Up towards the house. This was a really long driveway. I drove up towards the house, and there was a tree. And I got underneath the tree, and I'm like, okay, they can't see me now. So I put the scanner on the seat, climbed. I opened up my door, climbed out, took the box of weed, and there was a soybean field there. And I could hear him saying, he's under the tree. We can't see him. You know, Is he in the car? Is he out of the car? And I crawled into the soybean field, pushed the box in there, got back in the car, drove up to the door, turned around and left. Left the money in the garbage bag in the. In the bush. And then I heard the police say, I'll go get what's in the bush and I'll let you know what it is, you know. So I drew. I was driving around for another two hours. They were following me to the point where. Until the pilot called in and say, hey, man, I have to go to the bathroom. I can't follow this guy anymore. I went to my mom's house. I was afraid to go home. I went to my mom's house, and they were flying around in circles. And then the pilot said, hey, man, I have to land. I have to go to the bathroom. So they called that off. And then, to answer your question, I quit. Yes. I was nervous, and I said, I'm done. I can't do this anymore.
