Four LA County men among 34 arrested in San Bernardino County marijuana busts
A week-long sweep dubbed Operation Hammer Strike eradicated more than 33,000 marijuana plants and seized nine guns across a string of high-desert communities.
Four Los Angeles County men were among 34 people arrested or cited during a week-long marijuana enforcement operation in San Bernardino County, according to NBC Los Angeles. The operation, dubbed "Operation Hammer Strike," ran from November 1 to November 7, 2021.
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department investigators, along with deputies from several stations, served 26 search warrants across Lucerne Valley, San Bernardino, Twentynine Palms, Wonder Valley, Helendale, Newberry Springs, Pinon Hills, Phelan, Daggett, Barstow and Rancho Cucamonga, per NBC Los Angeles's reporting.
The four Los Angeles County men named in the reporting were Defu Zhou, 35, and Huang Quan Rui, 34, both of Los Angeles; Armando De La Torre, 46, of Tarzana; and Alejandro Aguilar, 46, of Arleta. Charges included cultivation of cannabis over six plants, possession for sales, illegal water discharge, and firearm possession with an obliterated serial number.
The scale of the seizure
Over the operation's seven days, deputies seized 33,189 marijuana plants, 8,588 pounds of processed marijuana, nine firearms, and more than $24,000 in cash, according to NBC Los Angeles. Sheriff's personnel eradicated 211 greenhouses, dismantled two indoor cultivation sites, and mitigated one illegal electrical bypass.
What triggered the sweep
The operation followed "numerous complaints about large outdoor and indoor illegal marijuana cultivations," per the retrieved reporting, pointing to a pattern of large-scale grows concentrated in the county's high-desert communities rather than an isolated incident.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Marijuana Enforcement Team framed the grows as violating both state and local law: the cultivation sites did not comply with California's Medical and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, and separately ran afoul of a county ordinance that prohibits commercial cannabis activity entirely, according to reporting on the operation from the Victor Valley News. That dual violation -- state licensing law plus a local outright ban -- is why the sweep treated the grows as illegal rather than simply unlicensed.
This November sweep was one installment in a recurring, multi-week Hammer Strike enforcement campaign rather than a single stand-alone raid: coverage of a separate week within the same campaign reported 26 arrests and 204 greenhouses eradicated, indicating the county ran the operation repeatedly across the high desert over an extended period rather than as a one-time action, according to the Victor Valley News.
The campaign continued for roughly a year past this particular sweep: by late August 2022, cumulative Hammer Strike enforcement in the county had served 127 search warrants and arrested 103 suspects since the campaign began, seizing more than 158,900 marijuana plants, nearly 29,900 pounds of processed marijuana, 30 firearms and roughly $1.6 million in cash, according to later reporting on the operation's broader run retrieved in this session -- figures that dwarf the single week covered in the original NBC Los Angeles report and show the November 2021 sweep as one data point in a sustained, multi-year county enforcement push rather than an isolated incident.
What the coverage did not specify
The retrieved reporting does not name all 34 people arrested or cited — only the four Los Angeles County residents were identified — and does not indicate the disposition of the criminal charges against them.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by NBC Los Angeles. It restores a story originally published on this site in November 2021; figures are as reported at the time.