Dozens of suspected human trafficking victims found processing black market marijuana in California

Deputies executing a search warrant in the Central California city of Merced on Wednesday found about 60 suspected human trafficking victims working at a black market marijuana facility, officials said. 

The victims arrived several days earlier, smuggled across the southern border "with the promise that they would have a good-paying job and a place to stay," the Merced County Sheriff's Office reported in a Facebook post.

They were found living in "horrible" conditions, forced to process marijuana "to pay back the individuals that brought them across the border," the sheriff's office said.