Pubdate: Tue, 19 Mar 2002
Source: Kitchener-Waterloo Record (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 Kitchener-Waterloo Record
Contact:  http://www.therecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225
Author: Frances Barrick
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

POT WAREHOUSES 30 KM FROM CITY, OFFICER TELLS COURT

KITCHENER -- Marijuana grown locally is taken to three distribution 
warehouses about 30 kilometres from downtown Kitchener before it begins its 
journey to the United States, a Waterloo regional police officer testified.

Sgt. Daryl Goetz, a former drug officer, was testifying yesterday at a 
sentencing hearing for Hien Le, a 44-year-old woman who pleaded guilty last 
month in Ontario Court to operating a large marijuana lab in a two-storey 
Kitchener home she rented with her husband.

Police raided the upscale Deer Ridge Drive house on Oct. 6, 2000. Inside 
the furnished home, they found 276 marijuana plants, some just two weeks 
away from harvesting.

Le's lawyer, Craig Parry of Kitchener, said his client was paid a small 
stipend to take care of the house and plants, and she was allowed to live 
in the house.

In exchange for Le's guilty plea, charges against her 54-year-old husband, 
Thang Nguyen, were dropped. He remains in custody on similar charges in 
Toronto.

Justice Donald MacMillan heard from officials with Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro, 
police and a city fire-prevention officer who testified about the impact 
these indoor, hydro-bypass operations have on the community.

At one point, MacMillan asked Goetz where the marijuana grown locally ends up.

"There is information that this marijuana grown here is being funnelled 
down to the United States," though the events of Sept. 11 have made the 
task more difficult because of increased scrutiny at border crossings, 
Goetz said.

He said officers have identified "individual cells" which oversee eight or 
nine houses where the indoor marijuana is grown; that marijuana is then 
funnelled to one of three distribution warehouses about 25 or 30 kilometres 
from downtown Kitchener. "It is an organization," he said.

Goetz said police once followed a marijuana shipment from a home where it 
was grown to one of the warehouses, but didn't raid the premise.

Staff Sgt. Ray Massicotte, who heads the force's drug branch, said in an 
interview that he doesn't know why the warehouse wasn't raided, and 
declined to give more information about these operations, saying there are 
a number of similar drug cases still before the courts.

In other testimony, Ron Charie, head of Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro Commission, 
said these pot operations, which often steal power by bypassing normal 
power lines, has cost the utility $250,000 in power consumed.

The utility now immediately disconnects hydro once it suspects a grow 
operation and will not restore the power until it receives the money it is 
owed, Charie said.

As a result of this new policy, the utility has recovered about $60,000, he 
said.

But Charie said his biggest concern is that a worker could be electrocuted 
while digging underground at these illegal bypasses.

The sentencing hearing continues April 25.
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