LITTLE POT FIRE, BIG POT BUST

Firefighters Discover Grow Operation

Careless cooking led cops to a sophisticated marijuana grow operation
in an upscale northwest Winnipeg neighbourhood.

Firefighters were called about 7:20 p.m. Thursday to a bungalow at 38
Galaxy Way, where a small blaze ignited in the kitchen after a pot of
food was left on a propane stove, police said.

After the fire was doused, firefighters checked the basement and
uncovered a clandestine grow op with an estimated street value of more
than $700,000.

"Oh my God! Where did they get that?" asked next-door neighbour Cora
Ganotisi. "That's a lot of money."

Drug unit officers with the Winnipeg police vice division seized 422
marijuana plants from the basement.

A 34-year-old woman was facing drug charges yesterday. Police weren't
releasing any more details as their investigation was continuing.

PAID CASH

Ganotisi told The Sun a couple in their mid-to late-40s was living in
the home with their two sons, ages eight and six.

"I never met them, yet," she said, adding the couple kept to
themselves. "We never see them."

The Former owner of the house, Maria Zizic, said the family moved in
last Oct. Zizic and her husband, Joso, dealt with a relative of the
couple because the interested homebuyers didn't speak English.

"They paid what we asked for," Zizic said, adding the couple required
only a $30,000 mortgage. "And the rest they paid cash."

The 1,789-square-foot home was assessed at $146,000, according to city
records.

"I'm telling you, it's a very funny feeling," Zizic said. "I feel so
bad. It's a nice house."

The couple also claimed they owned another home in Lindenwoods, Zizic
added. Smoke damage to the house in Thursday's fire was estimated at
$10,000.

Meanwhile, firefighters discovered more than 160 marijuana plants
after responding to a blaze at a home north of Lockport in the RM of
St. Andrews early Friday morning.

The plants have an estimated street value of $100,000, Selkirk RCMP
said last night. Mounties are still looking for the owners of the
house. Nobody was home at the time of the blaze, which is not believed
to have been intentionally set. A Rottweiler perished in the fire,
RCMP said.

Busting grow ops in middle- and upper-class neighbourhoods is nothing
new for Winnipeg cops. In March, a 911 hang-up call made from a North
Kildonan house led police to two major grow ops containing 330 plants
worth $550,000. An Asian couple was charged in the bust. Cops were
investigating possible links to Asian crime groups in the city.

In late February, RCMP raided a home at 46 Park Pl. E. in posh Tuxedo,
seizing about 1,000 marijuana plants and three ounces of dry bud with
a combined street value of $1 million.

And in mid-December, cops seized a 50-plant grow op from the basement
of a two-storey house at 32 Shalimar Cr., after fire ripped through
the 1,811-square-foot Riverbend home.