POLICE BUST FOUR MORE GROW-OPS

Local police busted 11 marijuana grow operations in 13 days this month,
including one on Monday involving seven arrests.

Officers executed a search warrant at a residence in the 23300-block of 133
Avenue in Maple Ridge, where they located four rooms containing 344
marijuana plants. Seven men were packing up the plants at the time. All
were arrested. Five of them face charges of possession for the purpose of
trafficking.

The owner of the home, a 62-year-old Vietnamese man from Vancouver, was one
of those arrested. He also faces charges of theft of electricity,
production and mischief.

The same man owns a home in the 12100-block of 202 Street in Maple Ridge,
where police seized 412 marijuana plants on Monday. He faces similar
charges for that bust.

Of the other four men arrested, two are Vietnamese, 19 and 24 years old
from Vancouver and Surrey, respectively. The other two are 18 years old.

Local police busted six grow-ops on May 5 and 6, confiscating 4,023 plants
and arresting seven people - all Vietnamese. Four children were turned over
to the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

Police found 20 kilograms of marijuana in a home on May 7 after a neighour
reported hearing gun shots. The owner claimed two masked men tried to break
into his house and shot at him.

Last Thursday, police seized 351 marijuana plants from the basement of a
home in the 12100-block of Makinson Street in Maple Ridge. No one was home
at the time, but police have suspects.

On the same day, police found 328 more marijuana plants in the basement of
a home in the 25800-block of 100 Avenue in Maple Ridge. Again, no one was
home, but police have suspects.

Because of unsafe wiring, power had to be cut from the home, leaving a
neighbouring house without water for several days because the underground
well and electric pump is shares is on the grow-op property.

Anyone who suspects a marijuana grow operation in their neighborhood is
asked to call police at 604-463-6251.

Departing RCMP Insp. Fraser MacRae told Pitt Meadows council on Tuesday
that in the past four weeks the local detachment's new drug squad as
executed 17 search warrants on grow-ops and arrested 14 people, seized more
than 10,000 pot plants and two stolen vehicles.

Insp. MacRae has been promoted to superintendent in Surrey, the largest
RCMP detachment in Canada. His last official day at the detachment in Maple
Ridge is May 30.

His replacement, Insp. Janice Armstrong, starts on May 31. She is
transferring from the Lower Mainland district office in Surrey.