Pubdate: Sun, 27 May 2001
Source: Sunday Telegraph, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 News Limited
Contact:  http://www.news.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/436
Author: Adrian Bradley

DRUG GANGS IN $70M POWER HEIST

ALMOST $70 million of electricity is stolen each year by gangs growing 
hydroponic marijuana in abandoned warehouses and even buried shipping 
containers.The ease with which growers can set up operations has flooded 
Sydney and regional centres with increasingly potent cannabis.

The industry is so well organised that electricity diversion to supply 
illegal hydroponic operations is now the biggest area of power theft.

The Electricity Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) and the Australasian 
Utilities Revenue Protection Association estimate hydroponic theft is 
running at $68 million a year.

The theft is not to save money, but to avoid suspicion from outrageously 
high electricity bills.

"It's an enormous problem, and one that's been increasing," ESAA managing 
director Keith Orchison said.

"Total electricity theft in Australia is worth $120 million a year, so you 
can see the size of the problem."

Fuelling the growth in illegal cultivation is the boom in hydroponics 
retailing.

Eleven years ago, there were just four such retailers in Australia, 
compared with 420 today. Some retailers openly court home growers by 
placing ads in dance magazines and the alternative media.

South Australian police claimed this month that 75 per cent of the 
hydroponics industry in Adelaide was involved in illegal cultivation.

Detective Superintendent Ken McKay, from the NSW Crime Agencies, said 
police recently raided a hydroponic operation in a disused mine shaft at 
Lightning Ridge.

"They'll grow it almost anywhere," he said. "Hydroponics is the preferred 
method of cultivation."

Unlike outdoor producers, hydroponic growers can produce four crops a year. 
Supt McKay said some neighbourhoods acted as vast co-operatives, with each 
house growing two or three plants.

"They're then sold to a central distributor, and this is where organised 
crime becomes involved."

Police frequently gain information from neighbours or utilities suspicious 
of soaring power bills.

The biggest bust in Sydney recently involved 3000 plants with a street 
value of $10 million.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens