OPP BUSTS HUGE MARIJUANA FACTORY

Once Used To Grow Mushrooms, Plant Bears Appearance Of Organized Crime

A North Stormont mushroom factory converted into a marijuana grow-op
could have produced more than $3 million of pot every month,
according to police officers who raided and shut down the site.

Ontario Provincial Police said they seized 3,100 marijuana plants in
varying stages of growth, along with nearly $700,000 in lighting, and
electrical and building equipment, after executing a search warrant
on the former Nordik Imperial Mushroom Farm, at 1454 Highway 138, on Tuesday.

Eight people were arrested during the raid, including a woman police
identified as a co-owner of the facility, south of Highway 417 near
Moose Creek, about 60 kilometres east of Ottawa.

OPP drug-enforcement section Det.-Sgt. Paul Henry said yesterday that
police began surveillance on the mushroom farm about three weeks ago,
after receiving a tip through Crime Stoppers that a marijuana
grow-operation had been set up inside the 32,000-square-foot facility.

Det.-Sgt. Henry said that once inside, police expected it was going
to be a "significant grow," but were caught off guard by the size. He
called the indoor growing-operation the largest he had seen in his 20
years in drug enforcement.

Police said the marijuana seized had an estimated street value of
about $3.1 million. But they said the operation had the potential to
rival Ontario's largest-known indoor grow-operation -- an estimated
30,000-plant operation discovered in 2004 inside the former Molson
brewery in Barrie.

"The building itself had 12 rooms being prepared or in various stages
of being utilized for growing marijuana. Two of these rooms were in
active production," said Det.-Sgt. Henry, who estimated each room
would have been capable of producing 1,000 to 1,500 marijuana plants.

Det.-Sgt. Henry said the operation had all the "telltale signs" of
organized crime, although police had yet to make any links to a
specific criminal organization. "They would have had to come up with
several hundred thousand dollars to back this facility," he said.

Det.-Sgt. Henry said police believe the grow-operation was less than
a month old. None of the marijuana, which police suspect was likely
destined for the lucrative U.S. market, had a chance to make it to
the streets, he said.

"We took it off this organized-crime group before they could make any
money off of it," said Det.-Sgt. Henry.

Drug officers, accompanied by members of the Stormont, Dundas and
Glengarry detachment and the OPP emergency-response team, entered the
facility just after 10:30 a.m. through a main door next to a loading
dock, where a rental truck loaded with new hydroponic equipment was parked.

Once inside, officers discovered crude living quarters, including a
small bathroom and kitchen, and a bedroom with two sets of bunk beds,
where seven men and one woman appeared to be living.

After arresting the eight people in this area, police proceeded to
find an electrical room and several other rooms still under construction.

Climbing a ladder to the second level, police found the two rooms of
marijuana plants along with other rooms in the process of being
built. Two "tractor-trailer loads" of new hydroponic growing
equipment sat on pallets nearby, Det.-Sgt. Henry said. New electric
and plumbing systems had been installed, he said.

Each of the eight people arrested have been charged with possession
of marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.