Cape Coral Police and SWAT arrested a 43-year-old man after discovering a home he owned was converted into an elaborate marijuana grow operation.
Pablo Rivas is facing multiple cultivation and trafficking charges after Police found 50 pot plants in his garage.
The bedrooms were converted into marijuana grow rooms, where police found four Rubbermaid containers filled with marijuana buds.
The total weight of all the pot was nearly 75 pounds.
“It’s a lot. It’s a lot,” neighbor Sandra Arevalo said. “It’s incredible because this usually happens in Lehigh, not in Cape Coral!”
Arevalo said Rivas owns the home and rents it out to people, and the home has a past.
“Always trouble. Probably ten years ago, there was always cops who will come every weekend because it was teenagers, parties. So it was always a trouble house,” she said.
The southwest Cape Coral neighborhood where the bust went down also has a history.
Just over a year ago, a house one street over was raided by detectives.
“Was busted for distributing over 11 pounds of cocaine. Already a felon, a felon with a hand gun and everything else. Still there. Still thriving,” neighbor Steve Jones said.
The cocaine bust and Rivas’s arrest in connection with the grow operation have neighbors concerned for the safety of their kids.
“It’s scary. It's scary because I come here twice a week with my kids. They're criminals. They're criminals,” Arevalo said.
A bus stop also drops children off right next to the home where the marijuana grow operation was found.
Jones said he watched the SWAT takedown.
“I heard all the SWAT team show up and start smashing doors down. They kept announcing who they were, why they were there, and that people should come out with their hands up,” Jones said.
Jones told Four in Your Corner police presence has become all too common in his quiet neighborhood.
“It’s sickening now. It’s on the same street again. I'm tired of seeing news vans here for drugs,” he said.
Fox 4 also learned police seized 41 more pot plants from another residence.
