Police arrest 43 in biggest drug raid

[nabraxas]

November 24, 2010

THEY have their own gardeners, electricians, house sitters and money launderers - the $400 million crime syndicates targeted in yesterday's statewide drug raids that police say are the biggest in Victoria's history.

While the raids took only hours to conduct, the operation was 15 months in the planning.

In August last year senior members of the Crime Department decided to go for gold. Instead of picking off one crop house at a time they would quietly gather intelligence against up to five interconnected drug cartels and then move in one massive blitz.

As Deputy Commissioner Sir Ken Jones said yesterday, ''Any fool can go out and bust drug syndicates at the street level.''

Yesterday's sweep involved nearly 650 police, who were briefed on Monday morning that they were about to raid 65 properties as part of Operation Entity. By midday police had arrested 43 suspects and seized nearly 8000 cannabis plants with a potential wholesale value of more than $30 million.

As the investigation progresses they expect to seize property with an estimated value of about $18 million under crime forfeiture laws.

Suspects range from the bottom to the top of the business: from crop sitters - illegal immigrants who sleep on filthy mattresses in gutted houses surrounded by growing crops - to syndicate bosses who have moved overseas hundreds of millions in laundered profits.

In the weeks leading up to the raids investigators checked each suspect property in Melbourne and regional Victoria to see if they were operating as indoor hydroponic marijuana farms. They were all found to be active crop houses and cannabis was seized at each property.

Since Operation Entity began police have raided 120 crop houses linked to five inter-related Vietnamese drug syndicates.

Some of the properties were owned by syndicate members, while others were rented. In each case syndicate ''electricians'' bypassed power meters to provide free electricity for the crops. Detectives will lay theft of power as well as drug cultivation charges.

Each house can produce 200 plants every 12 weeks with each plant producing 450 grams of genetically modified cannabis with a wholesale value of up to $4000. Police say each crop is valued at $80,000. They estimate the syndicates have produced 45 tonnes of cannabis in the past two years.

Earlier raids as part of Operation Entity resulted in police freezing assets valued at $20 million in Victoria and New Zealand. The two-year investigation has involved Victoria Police, Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, Department of Immigration and Citizenship and New Zealand police.

An Immigration Department spokesman said the investigation had ''identified a number of people of interest to our department … and we hope to interview them for our purposes at the earliest opportunity''.

Police had been planning yesterday's arrest phase for more than two months. The raids were to be conducted earlier in November but the need to provide security cover for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Melbourne pushed back the date.

''We were going to go some time ago. Because of other operational issues that impacted on whole state, in particular Hillary Clinton coming … unfortunately she took precedence,'' Detective Superintendent Gerry Ryan said.

He said raids would continue for the rest of the week and more arrests were expected. ''This is a fantastic outcome.''

He said the size of the local cannabis market created serious community health problems. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been leached from the economy to be sent overseas.

Bon Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese Community in Australia (Victoria Chapter), welcomed the operation. ''The serious criminal activities of the Vietnamese nationals, many of whom are here on visitor or student visas, have damaged the otherwise successful integration and many positive … contributions the Vietnamese-Australian community has made in the last 35 years in Australia.''

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-arrest-43-in-biggest-drug-raid-20101123-185m4.html?from=age_sb

[Amazonian]

Would you agree that there is always an over estimate of the street value of any drugs seized. ? It makes the police force look good. (thats what they think anyway)

Edited November 23, 2010 by Amazonian

[Moses]

Would you agree that there is always an over estimate of the street value of any drugs seized. ? It makes the police force look good. (thats what they think anyway)

 

absolutely.

what should be mentioned is that they(police) have a direct effect on the price and have made the market what it is today.

[ThunderIdeal]

He said the size of the local cannabis market created serious community health problems. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been leached from the economy to be sent overseas.

 

and whose idiotic fault is that?

[Magicdirt]

If any commodity is in demand someone will service that need, be it legal or not.

It makes me think of the days of alcohol prohibition, how much money has to be wasted before governments realise that it can't be stopped?

Now some other entrepreneur will have a golden opportunity to get rich.

The times I can remember when big syndicates have been busted it's left a hole in the market that can't be filled instantly and people turn other drugs like speed and worse, so it can cause social problems worse than what they have "saved us from"

[kindness]

the above article just reads like a bloody good argument for decriminalisation, the only reason I can see that the bust was a good thing is that it provided employment for all the people working for the authorities mentioned... I'm stoked they all have a job and are good at spying on people and working out what they are doing and stuff but as stated above the laws have created the problem in the first place.

It's an old boring argument that we've all heard before so I will stop, save to say decriminalise it NOW and start making money out of taxing it.. same as tobacco and alcohol. Then eventually we can move on from that to making it legal.

peace

[bℓσωηG]

Wtf? "genetically modified cannabis" is that a misprint ? Just say no to GMO!

[Moses]

Wtf? "genetically modified cannabis" is that a misprint ? Just say no to GMO!

 

misprint.... or more likely a lie to cause more hysteria so mr/mrs goody two shoes can get on their soapbox and bitch about what they assume has been done or inserted into this evil plant to make it worse.

[kindness]

Suspects range from the bottom to the top of the business: from crop sitters - illegal immigrants who sleep on filthy mattresses in gutted houses surrounded by growing crops

 

fark me... is the age like the daily telegraph or something? I'm not really that up with what newspapers are credible or just trash... but this sounds well trashy.

[∂an]

racist cunts.... there is no need to mention the ethnicity of the people involved... unless this will justify the police actions to a redneck public.

$30 mil equates to about 100,000 ounces... would be interested to hear if this seizure drives up the price in victoria - if it doesn't, there is a shit load of weed being grown elsewhere.

Edited November 24, 2010 by kalika

[PhoenixSon]

weed crime syndicate

going for gold my arse.

Veitnamese werent happy paying bribes?

[Zen Peddler]

My tax put to work as usual. Fucking get out there and catch some real criminals...

More people develop psychosis from long term alcohol abuse than from long term marijuana abuse. Its a fact. Legalising it doesnt mean we wnat to force joints on your children, just re-direct law enforcement towards crimes that actually matter in the scheme of things.

I mean im confused by our priorities - we support alcohol which fuels violence and sexual assaults in our streets two nights a week yet we cant have kids choosing to stay in and smoke pot and play computer games incase they suddenly realise capitalism and working endlessly to earn money to buy new products they dont need is not for them.

if you want to keep weed criminalised then ban alcohol. You cant have it both ways.

[botanika]

My tax put to work as usual. Fucking get out there and catch some real criminals...

More people develop psychosis from long term alcohol abuse than from long term marijuana abuse. Its a fact. Legalising it doesnt mean we wnat to force joints on your children, just re-direct law enforcement towards crimes that actually matter in the scheme of things.

I mean im confused by our priorities - we support alcohol which fuels violence and sexual assaults in our streets two nights a week yet we cant have kids choosing to stay in and smoke pot and play computer games incase they suddenly realise capitalism and working endlessly to earn money to buy new products they dont need is not for them.

if you want to keep weed criminalised then ban alcohol. You cant have it both ways.

 

The main reason they carried out this bust is not because they are specifically targetting cannabis but an organised crime syndicate that is making tax free income aswell as stealing electricity and using illegal workers. Those are real crimes. I'm all for de-criminalisation and law reform but in the meantime why should we support people who get away with profiteering on this scale? Their crime is not unimportant in the scheme of things stacked up against the majority of us who work hard in legitimate jobs, pay our taxes and bills. They weren't an innocent unassociated group of people who got busted growing plants for personal use.

It may be a slow path towards a society that is able to legalize, control and regulate drugs because there is one group that wants drugs kept criminalised more than any other and that is organised crime itself. It's all very underbellyish.