HUGE POT BUST

Police Nab Nearly 2,000 Plants

More than 40 police officers descended on several houses and a
business in Regina Tuesday, seizing nearly 2,000 marijuana plants and
snuffing out a substantial city grow operation.

"This shows a grow operation can exist in something that looks like a
regular house on a regular street," city police spokesperson
Elizabeth Popowich said Wednesday.

After about six months of investigation, RCMP and city police
launched simultaneous searches of seven homes on Tuesday afternoon
and evening, as well as a business in the 2600 block of Dewdney
Avenue. Nine people were charged.

Marijuana grow equipment and cash was seized from a house in the 3700
block of 28th Avenue, and a total of 1,858 marijuana plants were
found in houses in the 3700 block of 28th Avenue, the 560 block of
King Street, the 600 block of Robinson Street, the 900 block of Rae
Street and the 300 block of Toronto Street. Almost all of the houses
involved are multiple family dwellings, such as duplexes.

Police also seized several vehicles and an undisclosed amount of
Canadian money in the searches.

The nine people charged -- six men and three women ranging in age
from 22 to 42 -- are to return to court this afternoon.

Hal Wellsch, agent for the federal Crown, opposed their release
during their first appearance in Regina Provincial Court Wednesday.

"There's an ongoing investigation. There's likely to be further
charges laid," Wellsch told Judge Eugene Lewchuk.

The nine are currently facing charges of conspiracy, cultivation of
marijuana, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking,
and theft of power. In addition, two of the individuals were charged
with unsafe storage of a firearm.

Charged are Thi Ngoc Yen Tran, 42, Thieu Thi Nguyen, 42, Tuyet Thi
Huynh, 22, Quang N. H. Nguyen, 22, Thi Nhut Tran, 38, Thanh Van Ha,
41, Kiep Hoang Nguyen, 44, Khanh Hoang Nguyen, 20,and Ut Un Nguyen, 29.

RCMP Sgt. Brian Jones said investigators haven't finished tallying
the value of the bust, but with a mature plant worth about $1,000 on
the street, the seized drugs could have had a potential value close
to $2 million.

Popowich said the bust is a significant hit against the city's drug trade.

"Each of them would be an important drug bust," she said. "The whole
group of them together, 1,858 plants, is significant."

Police have pulled several weed operations out of houses around the
city in the past year.

In November, police found more than 500 of marijuana plants in a
southeast Regina home, 270 marijuana plants at a house in the 10
block of Rae Street and the remnants of a grow operation at a house
in the 1400 block of Wascana Highlands.

Early in December, more than 300 marijuana plants and equipment
related to production of marijuana was seized from a house in the
4000 block of Pasqua Street

Shortly before Christmas, a Regina couple was given 15 months in jail
and a hefty fine for a 280-plant marijuana crop police found inside a
Tanager Crescent home in September.

In court, the couple's lawyer had argued his clients are
"unsophisticated individuals" who were paid $3,000 to tend the plants
for a man they knew only by a Vietnamese name translating to "No. 2"
or "Big Brother."