Pubdate: Fri, 16 Dec 2005
Source: Bancroft This Week (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005, OSPREY Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.bancroftthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3853
Author: Rosanne Van Vierzen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

DRUG INVESTIGATION OF MAYNOOTH GROW OP LEADS TO DEPORTATION

One of the men who was busted by Project Longarm in September for his
involvement in a marijuana grow operation in Maynooth, Ont. will be
removed from Canada, a Bancroft court heard Tuesday morning.

Markham's Boon Heng Tay, 38, who has been in custody since
mid-September, pled guilty to charges of possession for the purpose of
trafficking and production of a controlled substance.

Tay was arrested Sept. 13 along with two other men from Toronto and
Scarborough. Tay was said to be acting as a waterboy in the operation.

The court heard how Project Longarm, with the assistance of the OPP
emergency response unit and the Bancroft OPP, was about to execute a
warrant at a rural property near Maynooth when two large cube vans
left the property.

According to police, officers followed the vans to a business front in
York Region where they watched large bags being unloaded and carried
into the front door of the business.

One of the trucks then returned to the Maynooth area, where two men
were seen bagging and loading marijuana into the truck. The three men
were arrested and officers seized about 4,000 plants from the back of
the truck, as well as 550 plants still growing in the back of the field.

Also seized were three vehicles and an above ground swimming pool,
which were being used in the production.

As a result of information from Project Longarm, York Regional Police
also executed a warrant at the business in York Region, where they
found 5,500 marijuana plants drying in the back of the store as well
as 123 plants upstairs. The estimated combined street value of the
seizure from Hastings County and York region is 9.1 million.

Prosecutors consider this a relatively substantial grow operation,
said Judge Geoff Griffin in court on Tuesday.

He said he considers the three months Tay has already spent in a
Canadian penitentiary awaiting trial to be a harsh type of sentence as
Tay is new to the country and doesn't speak English. I would consider
being by yourself in a foreign country for three months to be
extremely difficult, he said.

Griffin also made note of the looming election and Conservative
Stephen Harper's wish to crack down with harsher penalties on people
convicted on involvement in grow operations.

Tay was ordered deported back to his home country of Malaysia by the
new year and is prohibited from having any firearms or explosives
while in Canada.

The other two men arrested in connection with the September bust were
also present. Kit Keung Ng, 37 of Toronto and Edmund Che Kin Ho, 43 or
Scarborough, Ont. were deferred to a later date in January 24 at 9:30
a.m. so they could obtain appropriate counsel.