SPECIAL REPORT: BUSTING THE GROW OPS

Fighting back: Pot growers targeted

A new brand of citizens' crime-fighting meetings is sweeping the Lower
Mainland as residents look for ways to end the boom in home-based marijuana
grow operations.

>From blue-collar North Delta to blueblood West Vancouver, neighbours are
turning out by the dozens to learn more about B.C.'s lucrative underground
industry.

Police across the province have stepped up enforcement against B.C.'s
estimated 10,000 grow houses, dismantling more than 600 last year in the
Lower Mainland alone.

They plan to keep up the pressure and are appealing to the public for help.
At the meetings they drive home the dangers of having a "grow show" next
door and teach neighbours how to identify them.

In Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Delta and West Vancouver, police have been
handing out checklists on how to spot a grow operation.

Marijuana's reputation as a harmless, recreational drug is sliding as
neighbourhoods decline and police emphasize the pot industry's link to
organized crime.

"With the drug industry comes violence and death," said West Vancouver Chief
Const. Grant Churchill, kicking off a community information meeting earlier
this week.

In West Vancouver, where mansions sell for millions, police have raided 15
grow ops so far this year.

They say the crackdown is necessary to prevent innocent neighbours from
getting caught in the crossfire of escalating gang violence. In the past 2
months, a Burnaby grower was murdered and a Langley grower severely beaten
by industry rivals.

Police confiscated six rifles, a shotgun and a .38-calibre snub-nosed
revolver during a recent raid of 35 grow houses on Vancouver Island.

Crimestoppers tips on grow houses are pouring in so fast that most police
forces can't follow up on every one.

In Delta, where police have raided more than sixty grow operations so far
this year, Mayor Lois Jackson is leading the community charge with a
cheerleader's bouncy enthusiasm.

"We've grown up in a generation where you don't rat on somebody. But if
something really dreadful is happening, we have to take responsibility as a
society."

Sometimes, says Jackson, it's necessary to sell out a neighbour to save a
neighbourhood.

But this new "snitch" mentality is troubling to John Westwood, executive
director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

It is one thing for Block Watch programs to report things that threaten
safety and security in neighbourhoods, Westwood says.

"It's another thing for police to organize a program for people to snitch on
their neighbours. I have no sense this is a community-based initiative. This
is a police initiative."

Jackson invites skeptics to drop by neighbourhoods invaded by grow
operations.

"Just look," she says outside a dilapidated North Delta house and scene of a
recent bust. The roof is covered in moss and mould, the front yard covered
in trash and knee-high weeds.

Neighbours on either side continue to keep up appearances, planting flowers
alongside trimmed lawns.

Homeowners complain the grow operations, which typically set up in neglected
rental properties, create fire hazards and lower property values.

That was the chief concern of the coiffed realtors and property developers
who attended a meeting in West Vancouver this week seeking advice on how to
protect rental properties.

"I never really thought pot was a big deal, I mean, what's a few plants? But
maybe things have changed," whispered one local realtor, who looked old
enough to have enjoyed the 1960's.

The lights dim and a slide show set to a reggae beat illustrates the damage
grow operators can wreak on a house.

Holes are chopped through floors for tubing to vent the pungent aroma out
chimneys or into sewer systems. Walls are ripped apart to hook up
snake-like snarls of electrical connections needed to power grow lamps.

Bev Ujhazy, a property manager with Century 21, says it's easy to get
tricked. She was recently sent in to straighten out affairs after a
colleague inadvertently rented to a grower.

"I read the file and saw the credit check. Nothing raised a red flag."

The young couple who rented the property were friendly and presentable.
"Maybe they'll even plant daisies," Ujhazy thought at the time.

The crop turned out to be high-grade pot and the reno cost $4,500 to undo.

It could have been a lot worse, said Ujhazy, who now asks every renter to
agree to quarterly inspections.

When they ask why, Ujhazy will smile and tell the truth: "I want to see
whether you're going to grow grass in the basement."

Trust going up in smoke

Not surprisingly, Pat Wilson of Port Moody has an immediate question when a
reporter turns up.

"Oh no, they haven't discovered more of them on this street?" she asks.

But Wilson, like the rest of the people with $500,000 homes on her upscale
west-side Port Moody street have reason to be concerned about marijuana grow
ops potentially worth millions of dollars being set up in her neighbourhood.

Shortly before Christmas, she awoke to police officers with guns drawn and
dogs by their sides raiding homes directly beside and across the street from
hers.

Shock would be an understatement. She found out that her immediate
neighbours were big-time pot growers with links to Vietnamese gangs and
organized crime.

The well-kept homes had gardeners and she notes there was nothing unusual
about the occupants to indicate they were up to no good.

"Maybe we should have been more aware, but we don't sit around watching our
neighbours," said Wilson, after hearing of further Lower Mainland police
raids on grow operations.

While the outside appearance made the homes look like all was normal inside,
police eventually became aware there was a strong smell coming out of the
homes. Port Moody Sgt. Robb McGirr said there were four houses along the
street each rented for $2,000 a month. All were connected to a Vietnamese
man in one of the houses, who was found to have 1,500 starter plants growing
to supply the other houses.

"It used to be obscure houses," McGirr said. "Not any more, because they
don't need much room."

People in both urban and rural areas across B.C. are suddenly hearing about
a grow op in their neighbourhood.

On Friday, a man showed the destruction caused by a grow op at his
90-year-old mother's rental home in south Vancouver.

For the past year, no one suspected anything he said. A Vietnamese man and
woman with children rented out the two-story house for $1,600 a month.

But in the last month, the lawn was uncut and no one seemed to be at home.

The man, who does not want to be identified, said it was a funny smell that
finally caused him to talk to police. He then found out that the place was
under police surveillance.

By the time police did move in, the people growing the pot were long gone,
leaving behind a mess that will cost more than $20,000 to repair.

"We were too trusting," he said. "I would say to anybody renting a home,
don't trust anybody."

Vietnamese Community hurt by a few drug dealers

With police fingers pointing at the Vietnamese community, two gutsy
talk-show hosts decided to canvass listeners about marijuana grow
operations.

Tammy Dao and Stella Nhung introduced the topic and the lines at CHMB radio
instantly lit up brighter than a string of high wattage grow lights.

Caller after caller told how wounded they felt by reports that Vietnamese
gangs have taken control of the underground industry.

"It has created a backlash for the whole community," says Nhung. "People go
out to find work and apartments to rent and are refused."

Since February, police in Coquitlam and Vancouver and children and families
ministry officials have noted the nationality of growers arrested and
children apprehended in grow-house raids.

The Criminal Inteligence Service of Canada estimates Vietnamese criminals in
Vancouver are responsible for nearly 80 per cent of the hydroponic marijuana
grow operations investigated by the police. Since February, almost all of
the 42 children apprehended in drug raids across the province have been
Vietnamese.

"It's really upsetting," says Dao. "Not all of us are doing this, yet all
of the community is affected."

While some of the growers are heavily involved in criminal activities,
others are struggling families seduced by the promise of quick cash, Dao
says.

Many listeners said light sentences for growers send a mixed message that
growing marijuana is not a serious crime.

Dao agrees stiffer sentences might help but believes that is not the whole
answer: "We need to find a way to help people, maybe more ESL. We need to
push them to adapt to this country."

Nhung says the community must get involved to help itself.

You're Busted!...Now don't do it again

Police say the single biggest impetus for the large number of marijuana grow
operations in B.C. is lenient sentencing.

"It's a major issue and we have asked the [police] chiefs to petition for
sentencing guidelines," said Sgt. Randy Elliot spokesman for the B.C.
Organized Crime Agency.

"We have judges giving marijuana growers a conditional discharge because the
suspect apparently had suffered enough embarrassment from the raid on his
grow op, to others handing out two-year jail terms," said Elliot.

"We need minimum-sentencing guidelines because these grow ops are all linked
to organized crime and the communities are suffering."

The message seems to be getting across to the judges.

In January, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Stewart gave a 30-year-old
Vancouver man convicted of pot farming two years' jail time, eight times the
three-month sentence the prosecution had asked for.

"To me, the problem that now confronts this community in early 2000 falls
into the category of something where we cannot wait for a top-down reaction
or solution," the judge said.

"Change must start here at the trial level."

The Americans have also been critical of the more lenient sentences handed
down by the B.C. court system.

B.C.-bud smuggling cases now clog U.S. county courts across the border.

"We have been told about the lenient sentences your judges are handing out
there, and if I was a drug manufacturer I would be heading up to Canada
now," said Rick Porter, senior deputy prosecutor in Clallam county Wash.

Porter is dealing with his most recent bust -75 kilos of B.C. bud marijuana
found stored in six bags under the cabin deck of a boat in Port Townsend.

The boat was tracked to Vancouver last month, where it picked up the
marijuana.

"This problem needs to be tackled on all fronts," said Scott Rintoul of the
RCMP drug awareness program.

He said the organized-crime element is only one nasty aspect of the
marijuana grow operations in B.C.

"You can see property values plunge, landlords losing their life savings,
kids being destroyed by the [high-potency] weed, insurance rates being
raised and power being stolen," he said.

The end result is, the average person bears the cost of this criminal
activity, which in some quarters is being hailed as OK."

But Rob Gordon, director of the school of criminology of Simon Fraser
University, said the police action against marijuana grow operations costs a
lot of money and that "we don't do a very good job."

"Why on Earth don't we go open-field growth and tax it instead of trying to
suppress it?" he said.

Gordon added that there were legitimate jobs to be had in the marijuana grow
industry, including growing hemp for paper.

"We could be employing more people in it and taxing the businesses."

Cleaning Up and Taking it to the Bank

Police estimate B.C.'s marijuana growing industry generates $4 billion a
year in ilegal revenues.

Other estimates have it as high as $10 billion.

The industry needs to clean this dirty money so that the people behind the
grow ops can live the lives of luxury they've worked for.

Ottawa estimates that 70 per cent of the money laundered through Canada
comes from drug trafficking.

Mostly, drug dealers operate on a straight cash basis, explained RCMP Insp.
Kim Clark, officer in charge of the Vancouver Integrated Proceeds of Crime
section.

But sooner or later, they want to get it into the banking system.

"The Achilles heel of any money laundering is the deposit of the cash into
the banking system. To make it appear legitimate, it has to get into the
banks," said Clark.

There are as many ways to clean this tainted money as there are criminal
dreams. But the people behind it all have to know what they're doing.

"Like any good organization whose bottom line is making a profit, they are
very well organized," said Rob Gordon, director of the school of criminology
at Simon Fraser University.

In the most basic method, a marijuana grow operator, flush with cash, will
hire "smurfs" to deposit small amounts into various accounts.

Sometimes a large number of small bills is launderd through a
foreign-currency exchange house.

Or it might be put through a cash business like a dry cleaner or a
restaurant, which then deposits it into one or more bank accounts.

Those acounts will be "layered," the money passed from one account to
another, making it harder to trace.

It may then be consolidated into another account in amounts of hundreds of
thousands of dollars and then wire-tansferred or physically carried by
"mules" to other countries where reporting laws are lax.

"The dealers may attempt to conceal cash in refrigerators, overstuffed
furniture, machinery, industrial products, coffins or even dead bodies,"
reads a government background paper.

The money can then be transferred back into Canada into an already-operating
company - clean as the day it was printed.

Police say Canadian banks are ripe for these types of transactions because
of their wide international presence, their tradition of banker-client
confidentiality, and their ability to easily transfer clients' funds between
jurisdictions.

Launderers may also choose to simply take their money to a casino and gamble
with their profits. Or they may buy large numbers of lottery tickets.

Money is also laundered through securities markets either by buying stocks
and bonds or by setting up a private company and taking it public.

"Once you've compromised a lawyer or a stockbroker or someone else that will
readily take your money, then you've got it pretty much beat," said Clark.

"You can commingle, you can disguise or hide that money internationally and
move it around so quickly that it makes it very easy for you to enjoy your
wealth," he explained.

There have been several high-profile cases in which police successfully
brought prosecutions against drug dealers. And as part of the
prossecutions, proceeds-of-crime legislation was used to seize boats, cars,
money and even a Montreal-area ski hill.

Clark said 90 pr cent of proceeds-of-crime and money laundering
investigations involve international files. Police have to deal with
national pride, treaties, differing laws and political outlook in the
couintries they work with.

Some countries, like most Asian jurisdictions, those in the South Pacific
and Latin America and some Caribbean islands, accept cash - in any amount,
with few or no questions.