Three quarters of a million dollars worth of pot are in law enforcement custody after a major bust inside a home west of Conroe.

News 3 talked with local investigators about why so many marijuana-growing operations are being discovered in our area.

$750,000 worth of marijuana was seized from inside a home on Fish Creek Thoroughfare west of Conroe Monday Night.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office arrested the homeowner 54-year-old Hien Van Tran and seized 170 pot plants.

In recent days we've told you about separate outdoor growing marijuana operations in Washington County, one worth an estimated $50 million.

"Kind of surprised me as large as it was in an open area," said Mike, an under cover investigator with the Brazos County Sheriff's Office.

He asked we not show his face or use his full name.

He's not surprised by the recent seizures in the region.

"People who engage in these operations do find remote areas to where they'll scout it out to where there's not very much traffic in and out. And they'll go to where there's a clearing, a large clearing," Mike said.

DPS investigators here say the outdoor growing operations they've seen pretty much always have ties to Mexico and the drug cartels there.

They say it's easier to grow the drugs stateside with tightening border security including DPS gunboats even patroling the Rio Grande and other waterways.

"Marijuana still is the main cash crop that they grow. There's other drugs out there, we are all aware of that, but marijuana remains the number one cash crop," said Senior Corporal Jimmy Morgan with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"People will use weapons, go, they'll booby trap the area into it with fish hooks hanging suspended about head level and even booby trapped with explosives," said Mike.

While the outdoor operations normally have links to Mexico, DPS investigators say the indoor growing marijuana operations most often have connections to Asia.

Hien Van Tran was booked in the Montgomery County Jail Monday night charged with possesion of marijuana.

No arrests have been made yet in the two separate outdoor pot growing seizures in Washington County last week.