Over $3 million worth of cannabis will be burned by the NSW Police after Strike Force Grassy seized it from a makeshift hydroponics home earlier this week.
The bizarrely named ‘Strike Force Grassy’ has been running since 2011, started by Redfern Regional Enforcement Squad (RES). Strike Force Grassy detectives are responsible for investigating the indoor cultivation of cannabis throughout Sydney’s Central Metropolitan Region.
RES detectives partnered with Operation ODIN on Monday, executing a search warrant on a home in Barry Avenue, Mortdale. At the property, police uncovered 1112 live cannabis plants in an elaborate (yet dangerously shoddy) hydroponics house. Police estimate the cannabis has a potential street value of $3.3 million.
Three men, aged 25, 28 and 29, were arrested at the scene and taken to St George Police Station. There, they were each charged with cultivating cannabis in a commercial quantity and entering private land without a lawful excuse.
If convicted on these charges, all three men face at least twenty years in prison. After facing Sutherland Local Court on Tuesday, they were collectively refused bail.
According to photos posted by NSW Police, the men were also lucky to have escaped their hydroponic-death trap with their lives – as the entire operation was being run from a single power outlet. Naturally, they were also charged with wasting electricity without authority.
While NSW Police might be celebrating this achievement, public opinion doesn’t appear to be on their side. As Facebook commentor Kurt Letchford put it:
Nice work NSW Police, but honestly I’d feel a lot bl**dy safer if you got some real drugs off the streets.
Of course, this latest bust is only a blip on NSW police’s radar, as they seized over $100.5 million in cannabis in the first half of 2020. You can read more about NSW police’s war on weed here.