COPS: $10M DEALERS: 0

More than $10 million worth of marijuana plants have been seized following
simultaneous police raids at six homes -- four of them in Belleville.

The raids, which took place simultaneously Tuesday in Belleville, Kingston
and Brighton, were part of a Project Longarm operation dubbed Project
Industrious. Nearly 10,000 pot plants were seized along with high
intensity lighting, irrigation and ventilation equipment.

The culmination of a three-month long investigation, police involved in
the project credited keen-eyed residents for alerting police to suspicious
activity.

"It's the citizens of Belleville who took the time out of their personal
lives to report this suspicious activity working with police to make their
neighbourhoods safer," Belleville police Chief Cory McMullan said during a
press conference Wednesday.

Raids on Hickory Grove, Chelsea Crescent, University Avenue and Tracey
Park Drive in Belleville and on Redwood Crescent in Kingston and Seneca
Avenue in Brighton took officers to neighbourhoods of newer, $250,000-plus
homes where indoor grow operations were running in vacant houses.

Ross Bingley, chief superintendent of the Organized Crime Enforcement
Bureau of the OPP, said the operations were being conducted in high-valued
homes for a reason -- stealth.

"These locations had been set up in high value homes with real estate
values between $250,000 and $350,000," Bingley said. He added it is not
uncommon for indoor grow operations to be located in such residences as
the people operating them "know no boundaries."

"If they think they can set up in a high-end area and go undetected they
will," he said.

Though further arrests were being made in Toronto in connection to Project
Industrious, police told reporters they had, by Wednesday, made only one
arrest in relation to Tuesday's local raids. A 37-year-old man from
Oshawa, Bingzhi Liu, has been charged with production of marijuana,
possession for the purpose of trafficking and theft of hydro.

An arrest warrant for charges of possession for the purpose of
trafficking, production of marijuana and theft of hydro has been issued
for 39-year-old Peng Zeng of Tracey Park Drive, Belleville.

Bingley said Tuesday's raids and subsequent seizures will be felt by local
criminals, especially considering the value of the drugs.

"A $10-million seizure, obviously, at any point in time is a significant
seizure. The problem is it's really hard to place a percentage," he said.

"It will have significant impact on this specific part of the province as
have several other succesful drug cases we've had.

"Our problem is that, much to my shame, we have become a world-class
marijuana producing country which has caused organized crime to seize that
opportunity."

Bingley said, in 2008, in the Bay of Quinte area, the drug enforcement
section of the OPP, along with partner agencies, seized $31.3 million in
illicit drugs, $817,000 in cash, more than $500,000 in property and
assets, shut down 55 indoor and outdoor marijuana growing operations and
charged 263 people with various drug-related offences.

Six homes busted

When officers executed search warrants in connection with Project
Industrious yesterday they visited six homes in the region. Here are the
locations raided and what was seized at each location:

* [redacted], Brighton: 2,703 marijuana plants

* [redacted], Belleville: 2,772 marijuana plants

* [redacted], Kingston: 280 marijuana plants

* [redacted], Belleville: 4,063 plants

* [redacted], Belleville: seized evidence of a grow operation that was
being dismantled

* [redacted], Belleville: seized evidence of a grow operation that was
being dismantled