Gardaí raid cannabis grow houses

GARDAÍ BELIEVE they have disrupted the activities of an international crime gang following the discovery of seven cannabis grow houses after searches in Dublin and Meath and the discovery of crops and harvested plants valued at €1.5 million.

The Garda search team also found an estimated €20,000 in cash, believed to be the proceeds of the gang’s drug operation.

Last night four men in their 30s were being questioned about the finds. The suspects are from Poland; gardaí believe they have been operating in the Republic as an organised gang for some time.

Yesterday’s operation followed an intelligence-led investigation into the suspects that has been ongoing

for some time. The Garda investigating team has had a number of suspects and properties under surveillance for months. When they were satisfied that some of the houses linked to the gang members were being used to grow cannabis crops, they moved in and searched the properties in a surprise operation yesterday.

Ten properties were searched in Meath and west Dublin, with seven found to be growing cannabis crops in sophisticated cultivation operations.

The growing operations were detected at houses in Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Clonsilla.

Garda sources believe the gang may have decided to spread its operations across a relatively large number of properties in the event one or two were discovered.

“We feel they were banking on the fact that if they got caught maybe only part of their operation would have been rumbled,” said one source.

Most of the estimated €1.5 million worth of cannabis seized was in the form of crops at varying stages of maturity. A smaller quantity of grown plants had already been harvested and dried, ready for smoking.

This portion of the seizure had been packed into plastic bales, ready for resale to other crime gangs.

“While these people we are interviewing are not Irish, we feel the drugs were not for export and that the cannabis that was coming from the houses was going to be sold to Irish gangs,” said another Garda source.

The same officer said the nationality of those arrested and the nature of their operation were both significant.

“We have normally seen Asian criminals involved in this. Lately there has been more and more Irish criminals involved, but it is unusual for eastern Europeans to be caught.

“The fact that the crops were being grown in houses is a bit of a return to the practices we had been seeing a couple of years ago; most of them now are in commercial premises, so to find smaller outfits in a number of houses all linked to the same group is unusual.”

The crops were being grown in sophisticated set-ups, with the rented properties all having been fitted with high-wattage lighting systems designed to mimic the heat and brightness of the sun and to maximise growth. The houses had also been insulated to keep in the heat generated by the lights, and irrigation systems had been set up to keep the crops watered, and to maximise growth and crop potency with nutrients and feeds.

Yesterday’s operation was carried out by gardaí from Blanchardstown and the Garda National Drugs Unit.

Later a fifth man was arrested in Co Meath as part of the same operation. Gardai arrested the man, in his 40s, when cannabis plants valued at € 100,000 were discovered at a house in Navan.