YORK SLAYING AN 'EXECUTION'

Cops Probe Link to Pot Growing in Basement

MAPLE -- A man shot execution-style in his rented home is the first
Toronto-area murder victim since indoor marijuana house "grows" became a
major cash crop, police said yesterday.

Van Boa Nguyen, 27, was gunned down about 1 a.m. Friday after two or three
men kicked in the door of the Vaughan house he moved into last November.

Before he died, his killers "forcibly confined" Nguyen, York Regional
Police Const. Steve Morrell said, without elaborating.

York's second murder victim of 2002, Nguyen "was executed" with a gun,
homicide Det.-Sgt. Mark Tatz told reporters outside the split-level red
brick home on Findhorn Cres.

Residents on the street of mostly $300,000 homes said the couple living in
the home were pleasant, kept to themselves and presented no hint of an
illegal secret. But police who first stepped inside, after a man tipped off
Toronto colleagues by telephone about a body, immediately smelled pot.

"It certainly looks like this was related to the marijuana trade," Tatz
said of Nguyen's murder.

Woman at Risk

A woman was living with him, but police would not say if she fled the Keele
St.-Major Mackenzie Dr. area house after the home invasion, and refused to
reveal her ties to the victim, where she is or if she is in protective custody.

Police have talked to the woman, "and her life could potentially be at
risk," Morrell said.

He said Nguyen may have known his killers.

The murder is the first to be linked to the current wave of
multi-million-dollar, modern pot growing in GTA houses, Morrell said.

He said several hundred plants being cultivated in the basement of the home
are near maturity. Fast-grow plants yield about $1,000 worth of smokable pot.

York police have raided more than 50 hydroponic marijuana operations
already this year -- compared to about 80 in all of last year and only 20
in 2000, Morrell said.

The value of the weed seized so far this year is more than $16 million.
Last year's York seizures had an estimated street value of about $32 million.

"I'm quite surprised we haven't had a murder like this earlier," a veteran
York detective said.

With so much indoor pot growing, "it's blatantly obvious organized crime is
going to be involved," the detective said.