Investigations

Siskiyou sheriff toured bullet-riddled van at marijuana handoff

YouTuber Tyler Oliveira filmed the walk-through and later drove into Shasta Vista before residents forced his crew out.

In Siskiyou County, California, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue walked Tyler Oliveira through an abandoned marijuana transaction site where gunfire had shattered a van's windows and torn through a headrest. LaRue said four people in a white van had met buyers to sell product when the buyers pulled guns, fired rounds, and fled with the weed.

LaRue told Oliveira that deputies need witnesses for cases like it and that few residents volunteer statements. Bullet holes covered the vehicle, but nobody was dead, which LaRue read as a warning rather than a completed killing.

He said unpermitted hoop-house grows spread across the county after California loosened marijuana rules in 2016, with up to 8,000 plastic-covered sites in the area and pesticides, trash, and dead animals left behind. Some operators received small fines while making large sums, he said, and money from grows has traced overseas.

Oliveira later used a drone to spot saplings, followed water trucks toward the plots, and drove into the Shasta Vista subdivision near Mount Shasta with an ex-grower and a local guide. Workers denied farms existed beside standing hoops; one man first admitted he trimmed weed, then backtracked.

At a warehouse reeking of marijuana, residents asked Oliveira to stop filming. A man who said he was neighborhood watch warned that neighbors feared people taking video after thefts from vacant lots. Others surrounded the rental car, accused the crew of jumping fences, and refused to share identification while demanding Oliveira's.

As the group backed out, a resident ran forward with a rock before others escorted them to the county road. Oliveira posted the report on Oct. 20, 2026.

County enforcement against the trade predates the upload. The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office told KRCR in 2024 that investigators had identified nearly 1,947 parcels with illegal cannabis in unincorporated areas and estimated 5,000 to 8,000 seasonal workers at grow sites, with prior seizures of more than 61,000 plants.

LaRue told Oliveira that state compliance checks on licensed dispensaries were essentially worthless while trucks still delivered illegal product to permitted buyers, and he asked state and federal leaders for more help.

Source video: I Exposed California's Deadly Chinese Weed Farms...