Edmond Police Discover Large Number Of Marijuana Plants In Residential Neighborhood

Police busted a man accused of running an illegal marijuana grow in his home. Neighbors tell News 9 at night it would start to smell like a skunk outside. 

Edmond police found 651 marijuana plants inside a home on North Broadway near Coffee Creek. 

Police said they found Xuan Nguyen standing in the middle of the grow operation. 

“Finding a grow that large it’s clearly much, much larger than even if he would've told us, it was for recreational use. It's way above what is allowed for personal use,” Emily Ward, Edmond Police Public Information Officer said. 

According to the police report, Nguyen told officers he didn't know anything about the plants. Officers didn't buy his story, arresting him on a complaint of cultivation of a controlled drug substance. Police said this was a community effort after receiving calls from neighbors. 

“They gave us a call. You know the old saying if you see something say something and in this case they did,” Ward said. 

The bodycam video shows the medium to large plants bagged up for evidence, but investigators said the majority of the plants were in a storage building looking into neighbor's backyards. This is a crime, police said, is becoming more common. 

“We have been seeing a lot more of this lately because it is cheap to rent a house that you don't necessarily have to live in and set up an operation there. You visit once or twice a week and your neighbors don't necessarily get suspicious,” Ward said. 

Police said this all could be part of an even bigger investigation. As for Nguyen, he has bonded out of jail.