NEWS: 12 Arrested over $20 million marijuana crop

[notneo]

Big headlines sell papers. If the value stays the same people become uninterested... it's quite simple but sad at the same time.

 

[ar_gee]

[Edit: Post deleted. BigTrancer]

 

[DeSpise]

their estimates are useless anyway unless they dry it and remove the root mass and large stems and fan leaves.... thats alot of extra weight!!! they probably inlcude the weight of the soil thats still attached to the plants.

50 mil proabably means 10 mil realistically i reckon

 

[eKLaB]

Did anybody see the plants on the news? I'm just wondering why the fudge didn't the cops raid it a few weeks later when it would have been in head and they would have had a bigger bust!
Would have been more for the headlines!

 

[Evil Witch]

30,000 plants, apparently very near maturity...

so let's say for arguments sake... 2 oz a plant... being somewhat conservative...

that's 60,000 oz... (fuck)

which equates to about... 1,680,000 grams... or 1.7 odd ton...

let's say... and this is where the calcs get a bit dodgy... that on average, at '"street" level, a user buys an average of 3 grams per visit to his or her dealer (taking into account the many dudes that buy singles and two-fers, but also the dudes that buy a oz every time they score)

at an average of 40 bucks per 3gs... well... conservatively again...

we're looking at *realistically* around 22 million by my calculations...


if i was in charge of that op i'd be having a phat teary in my det cell right about now... and probably forever

 

[Killing_time]

As OoHarrio said, HOLY SHIT!
Me and my mates were havin' cones when this came on the news and... HOLY SHIT!
It was fucking amazing how much weed was there.
We're talking like tonness of happy herb.
Fuckin' hell.
There was this THICK AS ALL HELL smoke blanketing the area, imagine bushfire of bud.
No exagerration (Don't Flame, I understand it is burning plant matter but to see such smoke generated from weed [well bsides outside my mates house ] was AMAZING!!!!!!!)
It also seemed unusual how some of the officers felt the need to place there heads in the smoke as they disposed of the plants.

Enough said... such a waste, why wasn't I invited?
PEACE

 

[phase_dancer]

Did anybody see the plants on the news? I'm just wondering why the fudge didn't the cops raid it a few weeks later when it would have been in head and they would have had a bigger bust!
Would have been more for the headlines!

I can think of a couple of reasons. Bigger plants would obviously mean more handling, but it's also very possible some early headers would be shipped off to waiting distributors. Also, the dope would have been mature, so even if careful farming was applied, there would still be some seed formed. Re-growth from dropped seed during police cleanups has been known to be a big problem in some parts. Some 20+ years ago in New Zealand, an enormous re-growth plantation was removed by helicopter from the Coromandel area. Seed was liberally distributed along the fertile coastland. A few years later, the "wildwood weed" was some of the best I tasted while holidaying in the area.


In relation to the camouflaged police; about the same time as the story above, I knew a guy who had struggled to become accepted by the biker gang he hung with. Perhaps he felt he was a bit too much of a wimp for them, but what ever it was, he decided he'd do something to improve his popularity. He announced to us he was going to grow pot, lots of it, and near to a tourist area and all.

After his first successful season, he was rollin' in the bucks and had his club patch. His completely audacious approach had seen him drive a grader through a national park to his planned growing area. He then cleared enough space for a few thousand plants. After the second crop, he decided to expand, and drove the grader back in. He remarked that the dozer was not only a labour saver, but that it provided great mounds between troughs; Perfect for planting.

A few weeks later he wandered in to check his >6K seedlings. He said he was bent over a mount looking at a few babies, when all of a sudden police in camouflage stood up from the troughs. He was completely surrounded and hadn't noticed any of then as he'd walked passed. He lost everything that year of course, and got 3 years inside (father in the right job ). When he came out he bought a farm right next to the prison. He's now a retired, very straight farmer afaik.




A somewhat more interesting story has to do with the area just north of where we live. Around the mid 80's, it was well know that much mull was grown there and distributed afar. But then we started to hear rumors about an enormous patch growing wild up a mountain stream. The next thing we knew, maps were being sold to the area. 5,000 got you a copy. A guy turned up in town with a copy of a copy, and we all laughed at how stupid the whole thing sounded.

Then, a week or so later, the news breaking story came out, along with mention of the people charged. You guessed it, map carrying hikers.

A farmer had found marijuana seedlings growing along a creek bank running through his property. He went for a walk up the creek and noticed an increased abundance. He continued on until finally finding the source; a large plateau planted in dope, with a tractor along side. The report didn't quite get processed as it should have, and those responsible, hearing in advance of the inevitable bust, set out to "shift" the blame by informing unassociated parties where it was.

When the authorities busted the place and arrested the hikers, the most amazing thing to come out of it all was how the tractor had got there. It had to have been air lifted to the site. There was just no other explanation. That, and other oddities, led to the arrest of some of the main players. Being back in the days when over 1lb of dope got you 14 years in Qld, this was very big stuff. Needless to say, “rumors” abounded indicating many of those responsible were in fact able to start again next spring. Not that long ago, I spoke to a Detective’s wife who's husband had been working in that area. After 20+ years of investigations the group remains unidentified to police. But that’s not perhaps so surprising when the closest town is considered by locals to be both the gun capital, and the murder capital of Australia 8(

 

[sweet-tooth]

i read the about it it in the local rag, the report from the fuzz was that they were using very sophisticated camoflage to hide it from the whirlybird, do i smell a rat? what were these guys and gals thinking they could hide 20k plants anyways, letalone harvest, dry and transport the stuff! who am i to knock em, good on em for having a go and hope they do there time easy. it rekindeld my quest for the holy-grail and promptly started afew babys i aquired from north Qld's finest nursery.