Photo / Supplied.

Photo / Supplied.

FRESNO: Nearly 100 people have been arrested in an ongoing sweep of cannabis-growing operations that have netted more than US$1.7 billion ($2.4 billion) worth of the drug in California's Sierra Nevada range, federal and state agents said yesterday.

Sheriff Margaret Mims said several Mexican drug cartels were involved in the grow operations and that most of the 97 people arrested are Mexican nationals. Agents were combing tracts of public land in the remote stretches of Fresno, Madera and Tulare counties.

"Tremendous devastation has been done and continues to be done by these industrial-sized grows," said Gil Kerlikowske, who directs the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy and was in Fresno to support the raid. "I think when people see what these marijuana grows do to their land, it makes a huge difference."

About 450 agents have destroyed more than 432,000 marijuana plants during the three-week sweep, he said.

Still, according to United States Drug Enforcement Administration statistics, that accounts for a small percentage of the cannabis typically seized in California each year.

US Attorney Benjamin Wagner said federal prosecutors were taking a more aggressive enforcement tack this year, charging those arrested in the bust with everything from criminal immigration offences to conspiracy to distribute marijuana to depredation to public lands.

Officials would not clarify which Mexican cartels were involved but said more arrests were pending.

- AP