Police believe an organised criminal group was behind a series of similar growhouses police found in rental properties across Canberra.

Cannabis grow houses uncovered across Canberra were likely the tip of the iceberg as police moved to crack down on increasingly “fluid” criminal groups making inroads into the capital, an organised crime expert said.

ACT Policing flagged more properties would be raided in coming weeks after officers found more than 900 cannabis plants at various stages of maturity during raids on eight properties.

Police believed the same group of criminals used false identification to lease the properties before they set up the extensive grow houses and brought other people in to look after the crops.

Australian National University visiting fellow Clarke Jones said while terrorism and the ice scourge had dominated police efforts in recent years, it would be “naive” to think Canberra was isolated from the drug trade and organised criminal networks.

“The police can only do what they can do and there’s a correlation between police numbers and the number of detections. If you increase police numbers, you increase the number of detections.

“So therefore I would suggest there would definitely be more [grow houses].”

Read more in Canberra Times.

Source: www.canberratimes.com.au