Oakland Police Officer on Leave After Illegal Marijuana Grow Found at His House

An Oakland police officer is on leave after a large-scale, illegal marijuana-growing operation was discovered at his Antioch home, the Oakland Police Department said.

On an April morning, officers from the California Department of Cannabis Control used a power saw to cut through the steel-reinforced door at Samson Liu’s five-bedroom house in Contra Costa County. Inside they found exactly what they expected.

“Every room was converted into a grow room,” said Charles Smith, deputy chief of law enforcement at the Department of Cannabis Control (DCC), which polices the illegal marijuana market in the Golden State. “The carpet and walls are covered with plastic, tables in every room, all of the electrical is haphazard and all over the place.”

DCC officers found more than 80 pounds of marijuana in Liu’s house. That same morning, they also raided two other homes on the block, filling a dump truck with about $1 million worth of weed cultivated by unlicensed growers. Whether the three houses are connected is still under investigation.

The agency follows up on anonymous tips to identify illicit cannabis operations, which is how officers found Liu’s house in Antioch. Agents surveyed the property and identified an excessively high use of electric power from the home.

However, DCC officers didn’t realize Liu was an Oakland police officer until they began their investigation, and they notified the Oakland Police Department on the day of the raid.

A spokesperson for the Oakland Police Department told KQED on Tuesday that Liu was placed on administrative leave effective April 30 and said the matter is still under investigation, declining to provide further details. Liu’s Oakland Police Department salary in 2023 was $137,239.46, with an additional $157,814.37 in overtime, according to watchdog site Transparent California.

Although California voters legalized adult consumption of marijuana in 2016, illegal pot is still big business. The benefits of participating in the underground economy are obvious.

“It’s just lucrative. It’s a cash business,” Smith said. “You don’t have to pay any taxes. You don’t have to pay any overhead. A lot of the individuals that are brought in for labor are being taken advantage of, and therefore [growers] have really low overhead, and they can make a lot of money.”

But Smith and investigators are not sure why the Contra Costa area in particular has become a hotbed of illegal indoor cultivation. A recent CNN investigation that first reported Liu’s connection to the home raided in April found that Antioch has had the second-most marijuana raids in the state, just after Los Angeles.

“I don’t know if it’s just ease of getting into the market, lots of new houses, or if there’s something else going on,” Smith said.

Illegal cultivation can pose high risks for consumers and for neighbors of underground grow operations. “There’s the local risk of fire because they’re pulling so much power that they’re overloading and they’re usually bypassing the meters and the safeties on the house,” Smith said.

“Additionally, because they’re not regulated, growers are using all kinds of illegal pesticides and things that are hazardous to individuals who may consume them. You don’t want to smoke a pesticide — let alone illegal pesticides.”

Just last week, DCC officers led an operation with the Unified Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce in Contra Costa County, carrying out four search warrants for illegal sites. The operation yielded the seizure of over 1,000 pounds of unlicensed pot products — including 2,300 plants — with a total value of over $2 million. Officers also confiscated seven firearms and nearly $20,000 in cash.

Significant mold was also found, which Smith said is common in indoor cultivation. Growing houses are extremely humid inside due to the water needed to grow the crop.

While the CNN investigation into the illegal operations in Antioch suggested a connection to foreign growers, particularly from China, Smith pointed out that local gangs and cartels are heavily involved and active in the underground cannabis economy.