Photo: Stock Image
After a five month-long investigation prompted by what Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Dan Ashmore reported as “received information,” two North Hollywood residents and brothers have been arrested and charged with multiple narcotic, firearms, and “theft of services” crimes pursuant to an “illegal residential marijuana grow” at a home in Thousand Oaks.
34-year-old Vilen Ayvazyan and 41-year-old Hovannes Barseghyan opened the door to their home on the morning of February 14 th only to be confronted with a phalanx of law enforcement personnel from the VCSD Narcotics Unit and the Thousand Oaks Directed Enforcement Unit. Deputies waved a court-issued search warrant in their faces and summarily entered the premises, where upon they discovered “a large-scale marijuana grow operation” as well as four guns and “numerous items consistent with evidence of identity theft.”
Once inside the house, detectives discovered that it had been “completely converted” into an indoor growing and harvesting operation with features that included “intricate timing, lighting, irrigation, and fertilization mechanisms” all of which circumvented electrical, water, and gas residential utility hookups. At that point, detectives summoned Code Compliance and Public Works experts who determined that all utility meters had been bypassed, rendering the residence “uninhabitable” and a potential fire hazard.
Both siblings were taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where they were booked on the aforementioned charges.
