Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jun 2005
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Mark Bonokoski
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

GROW-OPS GO COUNTRY

BANCROFT -- As the cottagers of the Hastings Highlands used a recent 
Saturday to load up on flowers for their dockside planters, a 
joint-forces police operation connected to Project Longarm swooped in 
to bust its first major outdoor marijuana crop of the season.

If recent history prevails, it will be far from the last.

This area, some 150 km due north of Belleville, has germinated over 
the past half decade into a veritable pot paradise -- rife with 
acre-upon-acre of fallow or abandoned farmland, with most of it 
hidden deep in the bush and so far off the beaten track that little 
track can be found.

In the Kingston-Belleville corridor of eastern Ontario, 39 major 
outdoor grow-ops were scuttled last year.

Within the Bancroft area alone, there were seven -- many producing 
marijuana valued in the millions of dollars.

"This one was on a huge plot of land," said a Bancroft OPP constable 
involved in the raid. "It is hard to say exactly how many acres were 
involved, but there were many.

"And none of the fields were visible from the road."

In most cases, it is usually only the "gardener" who gets hauled away 
in cuffs, and rarely the owner of the property.

The one the cops allege is the "boss."

"Very rarely do you get him," Staff-Sgt. Ray Westgarth, then head of 
the Bancroft OPP detachment, said last year following the last major 
grow-op bust of that season, indicating there are often too many 
layers between the "gardener," who takes the fall and the "boss," who 
takes the loss.

"But the boss will be there to front another operation somewhere 
else," Westgarth said. "That's the problem we are facing up here, and 
the sudden increase in Asian marijuana grows in our area is becoming 
a concern."

In other words, while not all the grow-ops busted in these highlands 
last year were Asian-run, the percentage was high enough that the 
trend did not go unnoticed.

This year, the first takedown of the new growing season indicated 
that trend was not about to wane.

And this time, unlike last year, police claim the alleged owner of 
the property was present with three other operatives -- all actively 
planting their crop -- when the joint drug enforcement squad made its 
dusk raid.

And that man, police say, is 44-year-old Wei Chi Yam of Toronto.

Also charged with the production and possession of marijuana for the 
purposes of trafficking are three other Toronto-area men: Dong Hai 
Huang, 45; Guang Hin Ha, 40; and Kai Wak Chan, 42.

Police seized and later buried some $9 million worth of marijuana 
plants, beating by a million the final bust in this area last year.

According to police, almost 10,000 marijuana "clones" were 
confiscated at an old farm north of Bancroft, although the exact 
address is not known because exact addresses are no longer given out 
by the OPP.

"We've had some difficulties in the past when addresses were made 
public," says OPP Sgt. Kristine Cholette. "As in 'scavengers' 
visiting the property."

Three of the four men arrested are already out on bail, although with 
"strict conditions," Cholette says.

After each posted $10,000 cash bail, they were ordered to surrender 
their passports, to obey the law, to not associate with criminals, to 
report to the police three times a week, to be in their homes between 
6 p.m. and 6 a.m., to possess no weapons, and to have no cellphones or pagers.

"It's a pretty tight rein," Cholette says.

Only Kai Wak Chan remains in custody today -- his dilemma being that 
his arrest was seen as a breach of bail conditions imposed in 2003 
when he was charged in connection with a marijuana grow-op near the 
town of Picton.

In that case, police attached to Project Longarm -- as in long arm of 
the law -- seized so many fully matured marijuana plants that, once 
documented, the street value of the pot was pegged at close to $10 million.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth