POLICE RAIDS TARGET POT 'CLONES,' GROWING GEAR

Probe Hits Local Firm; 9 Arrested and 11 Still at Large

Law enforcement's latest salvo against the seemingly endless number of
indoor marijuana grow operations across the city involves the arrests
this week of a group allegedly selling growing equipment, supplies and
the "clones" used to reproduce the leafy, green crops.

Police say their nine-month investigation, dubbed Project OClone,
shows that, while they're getting better at detecting and taking down
grow-ops, they aren't keeping pace with their rapid
proliferation.

Toronto police say they're averaging a grow-up bust per day this year,
after dismantling almost 300 last year.

They went undercover during the probe which centred around a company
called Can Tech operating on Finch Ave. E.

It's there that police allege growers went to get equipment to grow
the pot and clones.

A related company, Can Tech Distribution, was run from McAdam Rd. in
Mississauga, Campbell said.

Just a few people ran the outfit, Campbell said, adding those growing
pot in homes and apartments likely didn't know the main players or the
other growers buying from them.

Over the past month, police say, they've shut 39 grow-ops supplied
with equipment and clones by Can Tech. In all police seized, 25,766
plants and 11 kilograms of marijuana.Tens of thousand of dollars in
allegedly laundered cash were also seized in raids that started Monday.

The investigation involved forces from across the GTA as well as the
RCMP and Canadian Border Services.

So far police have laid more than 50 marijuana and money-laundering
charges.

"This was a very large bust that's going to affect other people
because that product (grow-up supplies) won't be available," said
Staff Insp. Don Campbell, head of the force's drug squad.

Among the nine arrested are Anna Bui, 40, named on corporation
documents as an owner of a Can Tech company.

Eleven others are still being sought, Campbell said.

Along with plants, equipment and cash, police raiding grow-ops
sometimes find young children.

In a raid not part of Project OClone probe, officers say they found a
six-week-old baby living in an Uxbridge home Wednesday, with 800
drying marijuana plants, about 16 kilograms of pot and two "unsafely
stored" firearms. Police estimate the street value of the drugs at
$1.2 million.

The baby is in children's aid society care while the parents are among
seven people arrested at the Zephyr Rd. property, which also allegedly
included a separate building with 420 growing pot plants.