GROW OPS BRING IN HEAVY ARTILLERY TO THWART THEFT

More Armed With Guns, Booby Traps for Pot 'Pirates'

OTTAWA - An increasing number of people armed with high-powered guns
and booby traps are protecting marijuana grow operations from
thieves, or "pot pirates," according to police in Ontario.

Traps such as nails driven into weighted wooden boards and suspended
overhead in trees, and spikes attached to tied-back tree saplings,
are being increasingly found during police investigations, Det. Supt.
Frank Elbers of the Ontario Provincial Police drug enforcement
section said Thursday.

Weapons are often meant to protect lucrative grow operations from
raiders, but they have raised concerns about the safety of police
officers and residents, Elbers said.

"The traps we saw in the past, (used) more to lightly wound or scare
someone off, have turned into security measures," he said, adding one
OPP officer had been injured during an investigation by stepping on a
hidden nail-covered board at a growing operation west of Ottawa.

"I don't think they're out for police, but booby traps don't
distinguish," he said.

Officers are also finding "everything from machetes to machine-guns"
used for protection, Elbers said. Police have also found bunker-type
hideouts and bulletproof vests.

Police cited examples of an apparent trend toward weapons. In
September, a shooting at an Ottawa-area farm found to contain a grow
operation left one man dead and two others seriously injured.

Another man was shot in late September during a home invasion in
which two men barged into his home near Portland, 90 kilometres south
of Ottawa, posing as police officers in order to steal his medicinal
marijuana, which he had a permit to grow.

In the past five years, Ontario Provincial Police have investigated
almost 3,000 grow operations.