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several hundred thousand dollars I think is the best way to answer the amount of cash that we deal with on it on a daily basis and sometimes though it it can be up into the millions when Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana fronted statewide shopping sprees followed some 800 people took a number at this store on day one alone some waiting in the snow to select a preferred strain of paw and the marijuana industry exploded from a 1.5 billion dollar market into a 2.7 billion dollar one in a year's time but despite the skyrocketing revenue growth and a steady march towards legitimacy as more and more states legalize marijuana dispensary owners across the country still face a troubling problem they have nowhere to stash all the money because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level most banks want nothing to do with it and that's where companies like blue line protection group come in they safeguard the cash and the weed and help entrepreneurs move from the black market into the light my name is Ricky Bennett I'm the vice president of operations and compliance for blue line protection group here in Denver Colorado we provide the security we provide transported product we hire prior military and/or law enforcement people what will happen is is in most cases an armored vehicle and our security professionals will end up at the grow or the production facility where then they will go in and begin weighing everything is moved to be a manifest that's controlled by the state of Colorado and then at that point the deliveries will move from facility to facility just like any other transportation and delivery service think of it even as UPS or FedEx now where it sometimes becomes a little bit tricky is this large amounts of cash banks are legally required to report any suspicious or illegal activity to the feds or face money laundering some of that changed last year when the Treasury Department issued guidelines for banks dealing with marijuana dispensaries and the DOJ promised not to prosecute banks working within those guidelines of course a high level of uncertainty still hangs over the marijuana industry because of the unpredictability of a government it often says one thing what I'm not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue then does another the Obama administration in congress has talked about allowing banking under certain guidelines what we've seen here in the state of Colorado is that yes there are a few banks that have stepped out I think they've done so kind of pro curiously I still think that the industry as we move more towards legitimate banking that you'll still probably see 30 to 40 percent of the businesses remain cash Laden and that's just because of I think the stigma attached and folks would rather go in and make their payment rather than using some sort of system where they're tracked so we have businesses now that may pay the IRS with a million five cash are you going to entrust that to an employee a younger employee just to put it in the trunk and move it we actually transport the money to the state offices for the Department of Revenue or for the local office of the Internal Revenue Service but we provide a further service we actually stay there while the money is being counted and processed by the tax agency and then we go so far as to return the receipts that back to our customers for now a handful of banks and credit unions have started doing business with dispensaries in Colorado and Washington and with the mainstreaming of pot Bennett sees a bright future for blue line protection and the marijuana industry as a whole if the nation moves towards legalization or other states I do see blue lines roll expanding fairly dramatically who think that we can come in and work with the politicians the business owners and even the citizens and let them know that there is a firm that is tried to think this through from a business standpoint being the insurer so that we can move into those states and assist them right away we think for blue line the potential in this particular side of the industry is a target-rich environment