GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING an international crime gang growing cannabis crops in the Republic have seized cannabis plants and cannabis herb valued at about €500,000 in three so-called “grow houses”.
The Irish Times has learned that gardaí have now fitted heat detecting equipment to the Garda helicopter to detect grow houses, which generate very significant heat, from the air. The move comes as detections of such houses show no signs of abating two years after their presence here first emerged.
“We believe they are now probably throughout the country,” said one Garda source.
The latest finds were made in three rented houses in Co Meath in an operation by the Garda National Drugs Unit and local gardaí that has been ongoing since the start of the week.
One man, a Vietnamese national, has been arrested. Gardaí believe he was working for an Asian crime gang that has been operating in the Republic in recent years.
Gardaí believe the gang has been growing cannabis in houses expertly fitted out with the heating, insulation and irrigation systems needed to grow large quantities of cannabis. The drug was being processed and sold to other criminals in Ireland and overseas.
The Garda operation into the latest finds began on Monday evening when a house on the Old Bog Road near Dunshaughlin was searched and 340 plants were found growing in a sophisticated operation.
On Tuesday gardaí carried out a follow-up operation at a house in Culmullen, Drumree, near Dunshaughlin where another growing operation was found, involving 450 plants. Some 10kg of processed cannabis ready for sale was also found at that location. In another search on Tuesday, 150 plants were found at a house in Hallstown, not far from Dunshaughlin.
Gardaí estimate the total value of the find is bout €500,000.
The 56-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested at the Hallstown address. Gardaí believe he was being used by the gang to tend to the plants and to ensure the lighting, heating and irrigation systems put in place in all three properties were functioning properly. The suspect has been in Ireland illegally for at least eight years. He is believed to have worked in fast food outlets before becoming involved with the criminal gang growing the plants.
He is being held at Kells Garda station and can be detained for up to seven days without charge.
The finds were part of Operation Nitrogen, which was put in place by the Garda National Drugs Unit to find grow houses since the trend first emerged about two years ago.
The gang involved in the houses in Co Meath is made up of Asian criminals with links to the UK. Gardaí believed they have been behind other growing operations found in the Republic and that they sell the processed cannabis to gangs in Ireland and the UK.
'GARDENER' TENDED PLANTS EIGHT-WEEK GROWING CYCLES TO NET €4.9M IN ONE YEAR:
THE THREE houses being used as cannabis growing facilities in Co Meath had the capacity to each grow 400 cannabis plants, valued at €250,000, every eight weeks.
Had they been operating for just one year undetected they would have produced a total combined crop value of €4.9 million.
Garda sources said one of the houses raided this week not only had 400 plants growing throughout the property, but had a fresh crop planted in soil bags ready to begin growing once the existing crop was ready for processing.
“The plan appears to have been to place the bags with seeds into the growing system the minute the other crop was done, uninterrupted growing,” said one Garda source.
The man arrested at the house in Hallstown was working as what drugs gangs behind grow houses call “a gardener”.
He is suspected of moving between the three houses tending to the plants.
Gardaí believe he was very poorly paid by the Vietnamese-led gang behind the operation. The gang had also used an electrician to set up the heating and irrigation systems in the houses.
This man had hooked the power supply directly onto the national grid. This illegal wiring meant those renting the houses were not billed for the vast amounts of electricity needed to power the lamps systems for the 16 hours a day of mock sunshine needed to grow the cannabis plants.
Irrigation systems had been run to rows of the plants placed in soil throughout the properties.
The water was being stored in the baths of the houses and liquid feed had been added to ensure the plants grew in an eight-week cycle rather than the usual 12-week cycle.
The water and feed was carried to the rows of plants in tubes running from the bath attached to a pump