GROW-OPS GO UPSCALE

A few months after her family moved into their house in a newly constructed
subdivision, a Surrey mother was startled by a police raid on a marijuana
grow operation next door.

"I was sitting in the back of my house having lunch with my two littlest
kids and I saw a guy running around in a (bullet proof) vest," said the
woman, who asked not to be identified by name.

"They said 'there's a grow-op next door and we're clearing it out'."

It was one of at least four marijuana grow-ops found among the recently
constructed houses in the upscale neighbourhood this year, the woman told
The Leader.

"This isn't a starter home neighbourhood, these are keeper homes," she said.

Over the last two years, police in Surrey have noticed a disturbing
increase in the use of new homes to hide grow-ops - from "less than a
handful" two years ago to at least 33 so far this year, according to RCMP
Const. Tim Shields.

One Cloverdale housing project accounted for 14 of those raids, police said.

In one raid two weeks ago, police seized 611 plants from a Newton house,
just 10 days after the owner was granted an occupancy permit.

"It's been picking up at an alarming rate," Shields said Tuesday.

Instead of renting older houses to grow pot, criminals are now using their
drug profits to buy new houses outright.

"(That way), they don't to have to worry about suspicious landlords,"
Shields said.

Or suspicious neighbours, Shields added, because people are unlikely to
suspect a grow-op in a new housing development.

As well, he said, crooks count on the construction activity around new
buildings to conceal the movement of pot plants and equipment. For the most
part, police say, the people buying new homes for pot growing appear to be
members of the gangs that control a large portion of the marijuana growing
trade.

It's hard to prosecute the owners, Shields said, because they can claim
they didn't know about the pot plants.

"They purchase the house with cash and obtain hydro under an assumed name
to make it difficult to establish who had the care and control of the home."

After a raid the house is sold off, often at a discount, Shields said.