CALGARY – Police have dismantled a massive indoor marijuana grow-operation – one of the largest ever discovered in the province’s history – in the central Alberta community of Stettler.
Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) removed 3,284 plants, worth an estimated value of nearly $4 million on the street.
“This ranks among some of the top five we have seen in the province,” said S/Sgt. Keith Hurley, with the ALERT Green Team. “This was a very large-scale operation that would have provided significant funding towards organized crime.”
The Green Team is made up of Calgary Police and RCMP officers.
VIRTUAL TOUR: Behind the scenes of a marijuana grow-op
Investigators found the grow op inside a barn at a rural Stettler home off Highway 12, along with three kilograms of dried bud that had been harvested recently.
The three-stage operation was powered by an industrial-sized generator.
Police also seized two pickup trucks believed to be used for smuggling drugs, which had hidden compartments located in the slip tanks.
Kin Wa Au Yeung, a 53-year-old man, and Dan Wang, a 35-year-old woman, were arrested in the home. They are facing charges relating to drug trafficking and illegal production.
READ MORE: First ‘grow-op on wheels’ in Alberta discovered
The drugs were meant for recreational, not medical use, Hurley added.
Neither of the accused possessed a valid Health Canada licence to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
The next-largest seizure of plants in Alberta from an indoor grow op happened in December 2012, when ALERT seized 2,233 plants from a home west of Edmonton in Parkland County.
The biggest outdoor grow op ALERT has dismantled involved 3,854 plants seized in Drumheller in August 2010.
READ MORE: ALERT’s Green Team takes to the sky to tackle rural marihuana grow operations
To report a suspected marijuana grow operation in your community, you’re asked to call police or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
You can find information on how to spot a marihuana grow operation on ALERT’s website.
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