Skowhegan police Chief David Bucknam, third from left, speaks Monday with other law enforcement officers following a traffic stop in Skowhegan that yielded about 200 marijuana plants being transported in the trailer in the background. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel

SKOWHEGAN — The local police chief said he conducted a traffic stop Monday afternoon that resulted in the seizure of 200 unlicensed marijuana plants.

Working with U.S. Border Patrol agents, Chief David Bucknam of the Skowhegan Police Department stopped a pickup truck that was hauling a trailer on Pleasant Street. Officials said they found the plants inside the trailer.

They arrested the driver and passenger, who are Massachusetts residents, but the license plates on the Ford F-150 pickup were from Maine, according to Bucknam.

These marijuana plants were confiscated by authorities Monday after they were discovered in a trailer during a traffic stop in Skowhegan. Photo courtesy of Skowhegan police

The chief said the men who were arrested did not have licenses for growing medical or retail marijuana.

“The registration on the trailer was expired, so I stopped it and Border Patrol backed me up and advised they believed the trailer would be full of marijuana,” Bucknam said at the scene Monday. “I spoke with the operator of the vehicle and, basically, he admitted to the marijuana plants being back there and gave us consent to search the trailer. Right now, we are arresting him and the passenger and securing the truck, trailer and marijuana as evidence.”

At the scene at about 3:30 p.m., several U.S. Border Patrol agents in pickup trucks were working with Bucknam and other officers. The section of Pleasant Street near the parking lot for Skowhegan Savings Bank was closed to traffic. Bucknam said the agents had been training in the area Monday.

The trailer was a 21-foot Nitro trailer, and the marijuana plants were in pots, some of which were removed from the trailer and placed onto the hood of Bucknam’s police cruiser.

Bucknam said he could not release the names of the men who were arrested until police had opportunity to interview them at the police station and confirm their identities.