Herb Fellow
New Member
The discovery of the largest home grow operation ever found in Calgary once again illustrates that the city's suburbs are fertile ground for growing marijuana. Police found 2,445 plants worth up to $4 million spread throughout the interior of a large home on Patterson Crescent S.W. Friday night.
Surveillance cameras monitoring the home and the presence of marijuana clippings used to clone the most potent plants are signs the grow was part of a larger criminal operation with grows at other locations, investigators said. "It was quite sophisticated," said Staff Sgt. Darren Cave of the Calgary police drug unit. "We have some information that might be related to other addresses in the city."
No arrests have been made and investigators are now trying to determine who owns or rents the 4,684-square foot house, which city assessment records value at $1.2 million. The Southern Alberta Marijuana Investigative Team - a combined unit of city police and RMCP members - was summoned to the house late Friday after a service person visiting the property called police. Friday's bust is the biggest the unit has encountered since its formation in late 2003 - and is the latest in a series of record-setting seizures from large suburban homes.
In what was thought to be the city's biggest residential marijuana bust prior to Friday's, police found 2,319 plants at an Arbour Lake home in 2005. The Arbour Lake seizure eclipsed a 2003 find in Scenic Acres, when investigators seized 2,100 pot plants inside a 2,300 sq. ft. house on Schiller Crescent N.W.
In 2006, police seized $63 million worth of marijuana from grow ops in Calgary. Two years earlier, in 2004, the total topped $100 million.
The home on Patterson Crescent bore many of the industrial characteristics investigators encounter at larger operations: the plants inside were in three different stages of growth, a technique which yields a new crop every few months.
Neighbors near the Patterson Crescent home said up until police arrived Friday, they'd seen nobody at the house for some time. "I'm really stunned," said Lauraine Pysh, who is the neighbourhood Block Watch captain. "They must have been coming at night, because I walk in this area every day and I've never noticed anything," she said.
A number of neighbours said the home was once owned by an elderly couple who sold it a few years ago. A group of young people then moved in. One neighbour said police were called a couple times to quell loud parties. He said the young people moved out last fall. Since then he's seen nobody at the home, and only spotted as pick-up truck on a couple of occasions. When he walked over after police arrived Friday, the man, who didn't want to be identified, said he could smell the marijuana.
"The fact that their growing a couple million dollars worth of marijuana in the place -- yeah that's surprise, surprise," he said.
Andrea Propp was preparing to leave with friends for Banff on Friday when she saw police pull up. "I said, 'That's really strange, did you see all those cars going up there. I bet that was a drug bust or something. Something fishy's going on,'" Propp said.
Another neighbour said in retrospect she found it suspicious she never saw anyone at the home. "When we think back, we think, well, when it snowed we really never saw tire tracks or anything," said the woman, who didn't want to be identified. The woman said she suspects there are similar grow operations in every Calgary neighbourhood.
The marijuana growers had also bypassed the home's electrical meter to steal the large amount of power needed for the grow lights and had run wiring throughout the house. "The drywall has been punched out in several places," Cave said. The existence of this large-scale operation and so many others like it shows the need for tougher laws and increased police resources directed at organized crime, one watchdog said.
"This just shows how seriously we have to take the issue. The general public doesn't realize how dangerous the groups who are behind this are," said Shawn Howard of the Canadian Justice Foundation.
Crime legislation currently before Parliament is proposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking and production. If Bill C-26 becomes law, grow ops larger than 500 plants could net a minimum two-year sentence for anyone convicted of marijuana production. The current maximum for production of marijuana is seven years. Aggravating factors, such as damaging someone else's property to set up the operation, would increase the minimum sentence to three years.
"It's going to have some effect, but it won't slow down the organized crime networks," Howard said.
Source: The Calgary Herald
Copyright: 2008, The Calgary Herald
Contact: Jason van Rassel, Calgary Herald,jvanrassel@theherald.canwest.com
Website: $4 million grow-op in Patterson
Surveillance cameras monitoring the home and the presence of marijuana clippings used to clone the most potent plants are signs the grow was part of a larger criminal operation with grows at other locations, investigators said. "It was quite sophisticated," said Staff Sgt. Darren Cave of the Calgary police drug unit. "We have some information that might be related to other addresses in the city."
No arrests have been made and investigators are now trying to determine who owns or rents the 4,684-square foot house, which city assessment records value at $1.2 million. The Southern Alberta Marijuana Investigative Team - a combined unit of city police and RMCP members - was summoned to the house late Friday after a service person visiting the property called police. Friday's bust is the biggest the unit has encountered since its formation in late 2003 - and is the latest in a series of record-setting seizures from large suburban homes.
In what was thought to be the city's biggest residential marijuana bust prior to Friday's, police found 2,319 plants at an Arbour Lake home in 2005. The Arbour Lake seizure eclipsed a 2003 find in Scenic Acres, when investigators seized 2,100 pot plants inside a 2,300 sq. ft. house on Schiller Crescent N.W.
In 2006, police seized $63 million worth of marijuana from grow ops in Calgary. Two years earlier, in 2004, the total topped $100 million.
The home on Patterson Crescent bore many of the industrial characteristics investigators encounter at larger operations: the plants inside were in three different stages of growth, a technique which yields a new crop every few months.
Neighbors near the Patterson Crescent home said up until police arrived Friday, they'd seen nobody at the house for some time. "I'm really stunned," said Lauraine Pysh, who is the neighbourhood Block Watch captain. "They must have been coming at night, because I walk in this area every day and I've never noticed anything," she said.
A number of neighbours said the home was once owned by an elderly couple who sold it a few years ago. A group of young people then moved in. One neighbour said police were called a couple times to quell loud parties. He said the young people moved out last fall. Since then he's seen nobody at the home, and only spotted as pick-up truck on a couple of occasions. When he walked over after police arrived Friday, the man, who didn't want to be identified, said he could smell the marijuana.
"The fact that their growing a couple million dollars worth of marijuana in the place -- yeah that's surprise, surprise," he said.
Andrea Propp was preparing to leave with friends for Banff on Friday when she saw police pull up. "I said, 'That's really strange, did you see all those cars going up there. I bet that was a drug bust or something. Something fishy's going on,'" Propp said.
Another neighbour said in retrospect she found it suspicious she never saw anyone at the home. "When we think back, we think, well, when it snowed we really never saw tire tracks or anything," said the woman, who didn't want to be identified. The woman said she suspects there are similar grow operations in every Calgary neighbourhood.
The marijuana growers had also bypassed the home's electrical meter to steal the large amount of power needed for the grow lights and had run wiring throughout the house. "The drywall has been punched out in several places," Cave said. The existence of this large-scale operation and so many others like it shows the need for tougher laws and increased police resources directed at organized crime, one watchdog said.
"This just shows how seriously we have to take the issue. The general public doesn't realize how dangerous the groups who are behind this are," said Shawn Howard of the Canadian Justice Foundation.
Crime legislation currently before Parliament is proposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking and production. If Bill C-26 becomes law, grow ops larger than 500 plants could net a minimum two-year sentence for anyone convicted of marijuana production. The current maximum for production of marijuana is seven years. Aggravating factors, such as damaging someone else's property to set up the operation, would increase the minimum sentence to three years.
"It's going to have some effect, but it won't slow down the organized crime networks," Howard said.
Source: The Calgary Herald
Copyright: 2008, The Calgary Herald
Contact: Jason van Rassel, Calgary Herald,jvanrassel@theherald.canwest.com
Website: $4 million grow-op in Patterson
