SUBURBAN HOMES A COVER FOR SOPHISTICATED DRUG OPERATION

From the outside, it looked like a normal suburban home on Auckland's
North Shore.

Only an anonymous tip to police suggested all was not what it seemed
at the Glenfield house, 300m from a primary school.

As officers arrived to check on the tip they could smell
cannabis.

But only what they got inside did the scale of the operation
emerge.

The Target Rd house - and another property raided later - were part of
a "sophisticated growing operation", a police summary of facts shows.

Two men are before the courts charged with growing cannabis worth
thousands of dollars and stealing electricity worth more than $26,000.

When police entered the property, the court documents say, they found
the insides of the uninhabited rented split-level home had been
stripped and altered to make way for a "massive array" of
transformers, lights, fans, filters and irrigation
arrangements.

In one bedroom, police say, they found 40 plants about 60cm tall - all
in buckets.

In another, trays containing a 128 plants were under artificial
lights. In the garage they found 61 plants and

11.1kg of dried cannabis, believed to be worth about
$25,000.

Underneath the house, police discovered a "dangerous" set-up of power
circuit-breakers and timing devices which officers say was set up to
deceive power companies, which are are vigilant about reporting
excessive use of power - which can be a sign of drug operations.

Police say that between March 18 and December 11, electricuty worth
$11,000 was "stolen" at the house.

At another house, on Beach Rd, Browns Bay, they found in a similar
set-up and 285 cannabis plants, the summary of facts says.

Police say both houses were "noticeably devoid of routine furnishings"
and had more than $20,000 in "severe structural and cosmetic damage"
because of the modifications.

One of the two men accused of running the operation, Vietnamese
national Thang Tien Bui, a 34-year-old unemployed tiler, is applying
for bail when he appears in the North Shore District Court today.

Charges against him include possessing cannabis for supply,
cultivating cannabis and possession of 0.1g of methamphetamine.

His co-accused, Binh Van Le, 48, also Vietnamese and before the court
on drugs charges, was allegedly found with 0.35g of
methamphetamine.

A Mercury Energy spokesman said the Browns Bay house had a $15,000
debt which the company would seek to recover through the courts.

He said power theft had been going on for decades and "very
occasionally", the company discovered it was for drug-growing operations.

It aimed to reduce such theft with regular meter readings and a
technical team trained to notice unusual power use.