8000-VOLT BOOBY TRAP PROTECTED DOPE CROP

A DEADLY booby trap was used to protect a large drug crop found in an
underground tank.

A metal door with 8000 volts of electricity running through it opened
into the tank.

It could have killed anyone who didn't know how to shut the power
off, police said.

They found the trap when they raided a shed on a property near
Kyneton in Victoria last week.

Six officers found a wooden trapdoor behind a false
wall.

Underneath it was the electrified trapdoor.

It opened on to a 50,000 litre water tank buried under a concrete
slab.

Police seized 40kg of marijuana with an estimated street value of
$160,000, watering systems and industrial-strength hydroponic lights.

Sixty-two plants were being grown in three sections of the tank
beneath 22 of the lights.

Images show the marijuana plants, many mature, were flourishing in
the secret tank.

Police allege that the electricity powering the elaborate set-up was
stolen by an illegal hook-up into the mains electricity supply.

Boris Petovski, 46, of Reservoir, was arrested last Tuesday and
charged with cultivating and trafficking a commercial quantity of a
drug of dependence.

Mr Petovski is also charged with theft of electricity and two counts
of setting up a man trap that could have caused death or injury.

He appeared in Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court last Friday on a
$50,000 surety and was ordered to surrender his passport.

The court heard Mr Petovski told police the crop was for personal
use.

Police swooped on the hidden operation after a month-long
investigation.

Acting Sen-Sgt Michael Portoglou described the set-up as
sophisticated.

"I've seen other hydroponic set-ups but I've never seen one
underground," Sen-Sgt Portoglou said.

"It was very well set up, very sophisticated.

"How long it's been there it's hard to tell, but we know there are
more out there."

Sen-Sgt Portoglou said the haul was the biggest in the area he could
remember.

"We've had other hauls with 60-odd plants, but we haven't had this
kind of weight," he said.

"We received information through a Macedon Ranges police hotline,
based at Kyneton, and other sources."

In a separate case earlier this year, a court heard that a trapdoor
hidden under a bathtub led to a 134kg crop grown in an underground
room in Sunbury.

The discovery was made only after a sharp-eyed officer, who had
recently renovated his home, noticed there was no silicone beading
around the edge of the bathtub.