LAKE COUNTY – On Thursday morning federal and local law enforcement officials were called in to investigate a suspected illegal marijuana grow off of the Hopland Grade that led to the arrest of three suspects.

Angel Fuentes Mendoza, 26; Salvador Vargas Zambrano, 22; and Francisco Moreno Mendoza, 44, three laborers from Manteca, were booked into the Lake County Jail on charges of marijuana cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale, according to Chief Deputy James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

Bauman reported that at about 8 a.m. Thursday morning the California Highway Patrol requested the sheriff's office respond to assist them on Highway 175 about a mile east of the Mendocino County line, where they were looking for a male subject who was seen walking into the woods after being dropped off by a silver-colored van.

Arriving at the scene, deputies and CHP officers followed foot tracks down into a gorge within Bureau of Land Management lands, Bauman reported. About 500 yards below the highway, they spotted the subject and followed him into a suspected illicit marijuana grow.

Bauman said that deputies and CHP officers continued to follow the subject through the suspected marijuana grow and into an established campsite where he met up with two other suspicious subjects who, at that point, were about 1,000 yards below the highway. All three were taken into custody for suspicion of cultivating marijuana for sale.

Law enforcement personnel from the Bureau of Land Management ultimately responded and, with the continued assistance of sheriff's detectives and a CHP helicopter, commenced with their investigation and subsequent eradication of the illicit marijuana grow, according to Bauman.

Angel Mendoza and Francisco Mendoza remained in the Lake County Jail on Thursday night, each being held on $20,000. Zambrano, whose bail also had been set at $20,000, had been released.

Bauman said the Bureau of Land Management is leading the investigation into the case.

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