Police busy seizing bumper marijuana crop

OTTAWA Police on both sides of the Ottawa River are waging a continuing
battle against this year's bumper crop of marijuana.

In Boileau, Que., in the Petite Nation region, about 30 kilometres
northeast of Montebello, the Surete du Quebec's organized crime squad
swooped down on a "minifarm" yesterday afternoon.

Surete officers seized between 600 and 800 plants with a street value
estimated as high as $400,000, in the raid at 508 Chemin Boileau. The
operation began around 1:30 p.m., said Const. Mathias Tellier, spokesman
for the Surete in Montreal.

Hundreds of growing plants were taken from the field, and police seized an
additional 150 plants that had recently been harvested and were found in a
truck at the scene, Const. Tellier said.

Police also found two buildings on the farm that were being used to dry the
plants. "They were full of plants," Const. Tellier said. Each plant is
worth between $400 and $500, he said.

"There were three people at the scene when police arrived: two men and a
woman," Const. Tellier said. All three were arrested.

The names of the suspects are not being divulged until charges are laid,
which is expected to happen today. The suspects are to appear in Quebec
court, either in Hull or in Mont Laurier, Const. Tellier said.

Two of those arrested were thought to be living on the farm in Boileau, he
said, but he did not know where the third suspect was from. Nor did Surete
headquarters have other details available, such as the ages of the
suspects, late last night. (Because of the remoteness of the Boileau raid,
police at the scene found their cellular telephones were out of range.)

Meanwhile, Ontario Provincial Police were busy at a similar site on
Tuesday, when officers ripped $150,000 worth of marijuana from a public
field in Rideau Township.

As in many similar cases, no charges were laid because police didn't
immediately know who had cultivated the crop and couldn't afford to monitor
the field for days or weeks, until someone came to harvest it.

While opinions vary on the size of this year's local crop, a spokesman for
the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse says there are more marijuana
growers in the region due to a crackdown on imported marijuana.

"It's like pushing a balloon. If you push one side, another side only
expands," Richard Garlick said.