By NATALIE GALLENTI
A MAN has been sentenced to eight years and nine months jail for cultivating a large quantity of cannabis and possessing property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.
Sentenced last week in the Supreme Court of Victoria by Justice Mark Weinberg, the Vietnamese-born resident was found guilty of running an elaborate cannabis operation throughout Melbourne’s West and in particular Melton, Caroline Springs and St Albans.
The court heard on 21 September 2011, police executed a warrant on a property at 112 Black Dog Drive, Melton, and located a total of 201 cannabis plants growing in a “sophisticated hydroponic set up”.
The police seized the plants and hydroponic equipment and found the suspect’s fingerprints on some of the equipment.
On 22 December that year, the police executed another warrant on a property located at 26 Lomandra Bowl, Melton, and located 285 cannabis plants growing in another hydroponic set up.
Again, the police seized the plants and the equipment.
Through tracking the suspect’s movements that year, the police located 21 properties containing crop houses and seized 4590 cannabis plants. Of the plants seized, 1697 were of high quality with an estimated value of anything up to $2.3 million if sold in kilogram lots.
The total value of the hydroponic equipment located at the 21 properties was about $787,765.
In sentencing the accused, Justice Weinberg said he did not show “any genuine remorse” and had not been helpful to police investigating the cultivation operation.
