POLICE CALL POT BUST IN NANAIMO TIP OF ICEBERG

More Than 1,000 Plants Found In Four Duplexes

Police have arrested 10 people in Nanaimo, B.C., after finding more
than 1,000 marijuana plants growing in almost every room in four
duplexes on one block of an older residential neighbourhood.

The quiet city of about 73,000 people on Vancouver Island is best
known as a distribution centre for the forestry and fishing
industries, and a terminal on the edge of popular touism spots.

However, in the past five months, the RCMP have raided about 70
indoor marijuana-growing operations in an aggressive crackdown, and
police say many more continue to flourish.

Police say as many as 1,000 homes in Nanaimo -- about one in every two
city blocks -- may be used for indoor cultivation of marijuana,
Corporal Dave Deimling, of the RCMP Nanaimo detachment, said yesterday.

"We never will close them all down," he said. "No way."

Nanaimo City Councillor Douglas Rispin said that the indoor marijuana
farms are in every part of Nanaimo and that many residents do not care.

"People are just not that concerned about marijuana," he said. "It's
not really clear if they see this as a very serious issue."

The city will continue to have marijuana-growing operations as long as
the business is lucrative, he added. Many growers earn around $10,000
a month for cultivating the plants, which are shipped mostly to the
United States.

"You have to take the profit out of it to control it," he said. "It's
just like Prohibition or the Irish Sweepstakes tickets. The government
could not stop it, so they took it over."

The raid in Nanaimo came one day after a 24-year-old Vietnamese man
was killed in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. Police discovered a
marijuana-growing operation in his home with about 140 plants and
suggested the attack on the man may have been related to an escalating
war between rival Vietnamese factions in the Vancouver region in the
highly lucrative marijuana trade. Police have previously indiciated
they are investigating whether two other murders and an attempted
murder are part of the dispute.

Hoang Tan Khong, who appeared in Provincial Court in Nanaimo yesterday
morning, was formally charged with producing marijuana and possessing
marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. He was among six women and
four men arrested on Monday during the raid of duplexes on St. George
Crescent, near the city's main hospital.

Police found mattresses on the floor in the living rooms, indicating
that someone had been living there, Cpl. Deimling said. Most of the
other rooms in the eight homes were used for growing marijuana.

In addition to plants, police said they found nine kilograms of dried
marijuana, 55 high-powered lights and other equipment for cultivating
plants.

After the raid, police discovered that people in the neighbourhood
were aware of the activities in the houses. "People knew this were
going on," Cpl. Deimling said.

It would have been hard not to know, he added. Marijuana plants,
especially a crop of about 1,000 plants, give off a strong odour just
before they are harvested. "It gets pretty stinky," he said.

Cpl. Deimling declined to provide any further details about the
investigation until the evidence is presented in court.

However, he said, in the recent series of busts, police arrested both
growers and distributors. Although some have been linked to Vietnamese
gangs, he said that others have been from Hells Angels and from the
"white crowd."

"Everyone's doing it. That's about all I can tell you."

When confronted by police, those involved in the marijuana trade
usually offer no resistance, he said. "the growers are fairly passive."

But they are not as passive in dealing with their competitors.
Although police in Nanaimo have not been called to any incidents of
violence related to the marijuana trade, they have heard of stabbings
and beatings by rival groups. The victims do not report the crimes
and are not willing to co-operate with police, he said.

Many of those arrested recently in Nanaimo pleaded guilty and received
fines ranging from approximately $500 to $3,000, he said, adding that
since many earn significantly more each month from growing marijuana,
the fines are just shrugged off.