[Sativa]

A police search of an underground bunker hidden away on a rural property in the Fraser Canyon revealed a marijuana grow-operation suspected of being a nursery for other growers who buy young plants.

RCMP officers from Hope and Agassiz detachments arrested two men and a woman on suspicion of producing and possession for the purpose of trafficking 3,051 marijuana plants.

"Some grow operations will [involve] the seeds to the finished product; some others will buy the clones that [have] already started to grow," Chilliwack RCMP media liaison Const. Bert Paquet said yesterday.

In this case, "it was a matter of seedlings and clones only, which is the starting stage."

Paquet said, "It definitely indicates that the individuals . . . had a market to sell it to."

One of the men, a Hope resident, was charged with trafficking as well as allegedly possessing a loaded handgun, carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a weapon contrary to a prohibition order.

The investigation began last year.

"We've seen this a few times in the last couple of years -- these underground bunker operations," said Paquet.

"They seem to be more and more popular for some reason. It's not really more difficult for us to get the information or get the evidence needed to obtain a search warrant, whether it is at ground level or underground."

The intense lights normally used in marijuana grow-ops create a lot of heat, which must be ventilated somehow.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2005 that police flying over a private property with a forward-looking infrared device -- to create a crude profile of heat escaping from a residence -- is not an unreasonable intrusion into a person's right to privacy.

"Maybe there's a false impression that we can't locate those underground grows as easily. But technology allows us to keep up with the growers, as far as what kind of new technology or new tricks that they are trying to use," said Paquet.

The owners of the property on the Trans-Canada Highway in Hope could face fines, charges and policing costs for the dismantling of the grow-op under the District of Hope's Controlled Substance Property Bylaw.



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Source: canada.com Network
Author: Andy Ivens
Contact: aivens@png.canwest.com
Copyright: The Vancouver Province 2007
Website: Police find marijuana nursery for grow-ops near Hope