Victoria police have seized up to $12 million in cannabis from a crime syndicate across many months.
The cannabis comes from eleven cannabis operations across Melbourne. Each of these operations was set up in rented factories that were allegedly being run with $1 million in stolen electricity. Police believe that the cannabis factories are connected and have been investigating the syndicate behind them in a ten-month operation dubbed ‘Operation Crawl’.
In total, police seized 7,000 cannabis plants as part of Operation Crawl. This includes:
- 1,200 plants from Campbellfield (in October 2020)
- 811 plants from Braeside (in November 2020)
- 74 plants from Carrum Downs (in January 2021)
- 625 plants from Seaford (in January 2021)
- Four seizures of 461, 291, 156 and 640 plants from Ravenhall and Truganina (in January 2021)
- 712 plants from Derrimut (in January 2021)
- An unknown number of plants from Kilsyth
- An unknown number of plants from Campbellfield (August 2021)
Together, these plants weighed a whopping five tonnes and had an estimated street value of nearly $12 million.
While police are still continuing their investigations, they have arrested 12 people connected to the cultivation operations. This includes a 31-year-old man from Sunshine North and a 24-year-old man from St Albans who were arrested after the Campbellfield raid this week. Police expect to charge both men with the commercial cultivation of cannabis.
According to Hume Detective Sergeant Joseph Hartwig, the 10-month operation was “significant” and took months of dedicated work from Hume’s Crime Investigation Unit.
We make no apologies for having zero tolerance for drug manufacturers, and will continue to focus on disrupting the supply of drugs in the community.
While Victoria police seized a significant quantity of cannabis in Operation Crawl, it’s only a fraction of the supply across Australia. Australians also consumed record levels of cannabis in 2020.