Officers Arrest 5 From Valley Area in Marijuana Raid

WESTLAKE VILLAGE —  Four men and a woman from the San Fernando Valley area have been arrested on suspicion of setting up an elaborate indoor marijuana cultivation system that produced nearly $5 million in plants.

After a four-month investigation, about 60 FBI agents and officers from Los Angeles and Ventura counties said they seized packaged marijuana and marijuana plants valued at $4.75 million. The plants were seized at homes in Northridge and Sylmar, authorities said.

Cash stashed at six homes and found in several bank accounts totaled more than $700,000, said Sgt. Curt Rothschiller of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

A cache of weapons--revolvers, semiautomatic pistols, assault-style rifles and shotguns--also was seized, along with eight cars, Rothschiller said.

Police arrested Westlake Village residents Thomas Kikuchi, 48, and Stephanie Landa, 51; Sherman Oaks residents Claude TTanna, 56, and Peter Halverson, 35; and 39-year-old Marc Tuchman of Van Nuys.

Twenty search warrants were executed at six houses, five industrial park buildings and at nine bank branches, Rothschiller said. All the sites were in western Los Angeles County.

The surveillance operation began in December with FBI and Simi Valley Police Department officers staking out homes in Westlake, Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys. Arrests and drug seizures were made Wednesday in those communities as well as in Sylmar and Northridge.

“It is pretty sophisticated. It’s a lot of money, a lot of plants and a lot of dope. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more out there,” Rothschiller said.