Pubdate: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Page: A5 Copyright: 2003, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Author: Colin Freeze, Crime Reporter HOME-GROWN MARIJUANA OPERATIONS TAKING OFF IN SUBURBS A complaint long made by police is now on the lips of public-utility managers, real-estate agents and landlords: Canada's bungalows and subdivisions are increasingly serving as smokescreens for illegal marijuana factories. "Pretty well every utility is flooded with this type of thing. In every community you're going to have one on every street almost," said Bob Myers, director of energy services at Oakville Hydro. "It's a recent thing that's happened." Marijuana growers -- energy-sucking entrepreneurs who were unheard of in the suburbs a few years ago -- are now buying or renting houses, stealing electricity and driving up prices for legitimate rate-payers. Oakville is a sleepy suburb between Toronto and Hamilton, but police discovered nearly 50 grow houses there last year. In one well-known example, a landlord publicly lamented that seemingly respectable renters gutted his house to turn it into a pot plant; to add injury to insult, he said they left an unpaid $15,000 electricity bill after police seized 500 plants. Similar complaints are being made in all kinds of small towns and posh suburbs. "Increasingly, marijuana operations are being discovered in larger suburban houses located in upscale neighbourhoods," the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada wrote in its 2002 report. The Hells Angels and Vietnamese-based groups in British Columbia started the large-scale home-grown marijuana businesses, the report says. But the expertise is spreading as criminals scour the want ads for cheap houses with big basements and enclosed garages. The fastest growing area is Southern Ontario. Police who investigate grow operations in Canada's largest province were dealt a blow this week when a judge declared that warrantless searches involving a type of infrared heat-detector are illegal. Known as forward-looking infrared, the equipment can be mounted on police aircraft - -- and used for everything from finding missing people to hunting fugitives to unveiling the telltale heat signature of private houses that double as marijuana factories. "We'll examine the ruling," said Constable Steve Morrell, a spokesman for York Regional Police, which looks after a huge area north of Toronto. He said that FLIR technology is used in the force's many marijuana investigations, which uncovered 170 grow ops last year. Still, FLIR is "just a tool, not the beginning, middle and end of any investigation." But technological tools are important as criminals become more sophisticated. While hefty electrical bills are signs of a grow op, criminals are finding electricians who can steal electricity and rewire houses -- a dangerous practice that is thought to have caused at least 15 electrocutions in B.C. since 1995. As well, chemicals used in the operations are contaminating houses and communities. Marijuana minders are often illegal immigrants indentured to crime organizations. Several Canadian grow houses have been linked to death conspiracies -- including a double homicide last year in Oro-Medonte, north of Barrie, Ont. But grow ops will continue as long as Canadian pot sells for a premium in major U.S. cities, police say. And some growers are in a technological arms race with police. One of Canada's most elaborate pot operations was in an old barn in Warren, Ont. Investigators say behind the facade lay three levels of marijuana plants, a four-metre-long diesel generator installed to avoid big utility bills, and an elaborate air-conditioning system to make the heat signature less noticeable. For added camouflage, the growers even bought cows. But they didn't count on the wary intuition of neighbours. The neighbours could not understand why the new residents insisted on giving away perfectly good hay -- and this generous, but suspicious, behaviour provided the lead that police used eventually to make the bust. "They bought a bit of a herd to make it look legit," said Detective Constable John Valtonen of the Ontario Provincial Police detachment in Sudbury. "They were trying to look like farmers, but it just didn't wash." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth