At least five buildings and properties totaling $15 million belonging to people suspected of involvement in a large-scale illegal cannabis production ring have been or will be blocked by authorities following a key police investigation, La learned Press.
Posted 1:27pm Updated 5:00am
What there is to know
- The Association of Quebec Police Directors (ADPQ) and provincial police forces last fall denounced organized crime’s misappropriation of cannabis production license certificates for medical and personal use issued by Health Canada.
- The ACCES cannabis program, overseen by the SPVM, is a Quebec-funded program to combat the province’s black market in marijuana.
Six suspects are the subject of targeted arrest warrants: They are said to have used at least 22 Health Canada permits to manufacture cannabis for medical and personal use, thereby growing marijuana on a large scale for export to the United States.
The investigation, dubbed Opportunity, conducted by ACCES cannabis program detectives, began in the spring of 2021 after a request for help from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States’ anti-drug law enforcement agency.
One of the suspects then conducted two hawala-style currency exchanges totaling more than $450,000 with a man he didn’t know was a double agent for the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
A hawala transaction is an exchange of funds between individuals or criminal organizations from one destination to another without the funds having to pass through customs controls.
Permissions are becoming the norm
In tracking this first suspect, investigators targeted a warehouse on Saint-Patrick Street in southwest Montreal where illegal manufacturers are said to have used three different addresses and eight Health Canada permits.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
The first suspect identified in the investigation led police to this commercial building on Rue Saint-Patrick in southwest Montreal.
The accused building owner and his son are said to have set up companies through which they rented out premises to illegal “gardeners”.
Investigations then led the police to a farm at Rang Lepage in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, where they notably seized 5,700 marijuana plants and a trailer home where two women assigned to the cultivation lived.
PHOTO FROM A COURT DOCUMENT
The Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines trailer home where two of the suspects lived and where police found $22,000. The motorhome was confiscated by the authorities.
PHOTO FROM A COURT DOCUMENT
Officers tracked and filmed suspects carrying bags of cannabis books ready for sale.
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A dozen Health Canada permits were issued in the farm’s buildings, some of which were issued to candidates who did not know where their permits were located.
“Today, when we come across a plantation that doesn’t have a Health Canada permit, we’re surprised. That is now the exception, illegal plantations without a certificate,” says the lead investigator, who asked us not to write his name, probably for operational reasons.
Thousands of dollars in installations
The St. Patrick’s Street warehouse (worth about $6 million) housed 22 air conditioners, lamps and other equipment used in production, and the sums paid for electricity for a year totaled down to tens of thousands of dollars.
At the Rang Lepage property in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, illicit cannabis production was carried out in three industrial-scale hangars and the plants were separated by growth stage.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Farm Rang Lepage in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, where ACCES Cannabis investigators seized more than 5,000 marijuana plants.
A police-hired electrician estimated the electrical installations in each shed at $75,000, not counting air conditioners, lights and fans, among other things.
In another cannabis-growing building on Charland Street in Montreal’s North District, two of the suspects living there paid $28,000 a year in ongoing expenses (electricity, taxes, mortgage) while their combined income was less than $36,000. dollars per year.
The accusations
In addition to the father and son, who have interests in the companies that own and lease the building on Saint-Patrick Street, the four other defendants are individuals who are said to have cultivated the marijuana plants.
Qiao Lin, 41, Fei Chen, 41, Minh Tan Tran, 52, and Van Hong Pham, 52, all from Montreal, are engaged in cultivation of cannabis, possession of cannabis for the purpose of sale and possession of cannabis for the purpose of sale charged distribution.
Esmaelle Torabi, 59, and her son Alexander, 26, both from Montreal, face a cannabis conspiracy and cannabis cultivation bosses. The six suspects will appear in June.
PHOTO FROM A COURT DOCUMENT
Marijuana pots found by police during Opportunity investigation
The buildings are currently locked. The Quebec Attorney General will apply to the court to seize and confiscate them in favor of the state.
“Project Opportunity has seized and blocked significant proceeds from criminal activity. In terms of the value of the assets seized, Opportunity is one of our largest investigations to date. I am very proud of the results achieved by our team and we will continue our efforts to deprive criminals of the fruits of their illegal activities,” concluded Nathalie Morin, SPVM Section ACCES and Proceeds of Crime Commander.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514.285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the La Presse mailing address.
The opportunity survey in numbers
15 million: value of blocked property
$24,466: Amount of money confiscated (Canadian and American).
$172,800: value of cannabis production equipment
6009: number of cannabis plants
$1,500,000: market value of cannabis plants
523.88 lbs: bulk cannabis weight
$400,000: market value of cannabis in bulk
21 million: resale value (in the legal market and significant amounts of uncollected taxes) of confiscated cannabis
Source: City of Montreal Police Department