'Magical' California drug bust nets $1 million in psychedelic mushrooms
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Berkeley Police are celebrating a magical drug bust.
Cops in the California city hauled 677 pounds of “magic” mushrooms from a house over the weekend – worth around $1 million – after responding to a domestic disturbance call about a bickering couple.
“I’ve been a cop for 17 years, and it’s very rare to see mushrooms in this quantity,” Sgt. Andrew Frankel, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department, told SFGate.
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Police said the boyfriend and girlfriend were detained Saturday after initially refusing to leave the home. Officers then went in and “discovered a large scale psychedelic mushroom processing operation.
“In plain view were psilocybin mushrooms in various stages of cultivation as well as storage and distribution materials,” the police department said in a statement. “The Berkeley Police Department takes great pride in ridding the community of dangerous narcotics."
Both the 35-year-old male and 37-year-old female were arrested and booked into Alameda County Jail on narcotics charges. More than $3,000 in cash was also recovered from the home.
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It was not immediately clear why the couple was in a dispute, which led police to the home.
“It certainly makes you wonder what sparked the argument,” Frankel told SFGate. “I don’t think they were fighting over the TV remote control.”