Human trafficking for labor widely suspected in Monterey County.

On Aug. 16, thousands of illegally grown marijuana plants were yanked out of the Los Padres National Forest and destroyed by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. The illegal pot grows were commonly equipped with dams to create a water source, and infrastructure like sheds and fences. Evidence pointed to people manning these farms, but no one was found or arrested.

Undersheriff Michael Moore suspects there is another type of criminal element to these farms, where people are trafficked into Monterey County from Mexico or other countries, then coerced into labor, tending to grows worth more than $20 million.

Human trafficking of sex workers and manual laborers is prevalent in agricultural and tourist areas, the top two industries in Monterey County. But local law enforcement agencies are currently ill-trained to tackle this issue fiercely, according to Assistant District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni and Larry Bryant, a retired Monterey County Sheriff’s detective who investigated human trafficking locally for nearly a decade.

“On a scale from kindergarten to senior in college, we are in second grade,” Bryant says. “We react, but the narrative should be more proactive because traffickers are smart and they move fast.”

For a year now, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office have worked in collaboration with the inter-agency Coalition to End Human Trafficking in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties to raise awareness about human trafficking happening locally. Slowly, local law enforcement agencies are working on training officers to pinpoint signs of modern slavery.

“It’s not a matter of if it’s happening here, it is about having the training to identify it,” Pacioni says.

There have been no labor trafficking cases prosecuted in Monterey County.

“Until you get enough people trained, we won’t have rescues,” Bryant says.