Craig Wells: How a drug den paid off man’s life-threatening debt

A Bendigo businessman said he had to turn his home into a drug den to save his family from being murdered.

​Craig Wells appeared in Melbourne County Court on Wednesday to plead guilty to cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis in his family’s Kangaroo Flat property. Photo Jeremy Piper

A Bendigo father told police he turned his home into a seedy drug den to save his family from being murdered over his crippling drug and gambling debts.

Craig Wells appeared in Melbourne County Court on Wednesday to plead guilty to cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis in his family’s Kangaroo Flat property.

The court heard the then 48-year-old Bendigo father was arrested in 2019 after he started growing the plants to “stay alive and pay debts”.

Police became suspicious of the Bendigo businessman in late May 2019 after an unusually high electricity reading at the family’s second property at Kangaroo Flat.

When police raided the property in an early morning search on Thursday July 4 they found a pants-less Wells surrounded by his illegal horticultural project.

Officers unearthed a massive cannabis haul, with four rooms housing 88 plants with various grow lamps, fans and drainage systems set-up.

Nine ziplock bags with green vegetable matter and another bag containing cannabis plant seeds were seized.

Police found $1000 in a paper bag left in the kitchen.

A mystery switch was located in the roof cavity of the bathroom, and Wells told officers he did not know what it did.

As he was being arrested Wells asked officers he could “put on a pair of trousers”.

Officers searched the pants before he could get dressed and found another wad of $1000 in cash.

Police then turned on the family home, where they found a locked briefcase with $5000 bundled in $50 notes, two firearms and ammunition.

A Powercor electricity company investigator looked over the property and discovered an illegal metre bypass circuit, which had sucked up an estimated $18,166 worth of power in three months.

The court heard the 50-year-old father told police he would “end up dead” if he revealed players in the Bendigo region drug network.

“I’ve got no money. I have no way out,” Wells told police.

“I don’t want it to blow back on my family.

“Someone is going to hurt me or my family.”

His lawyer Shane Gardner said despite growing 74kg of cannabis, three times the commercial trafficking limit, his client showed considerable “criminal naivety”.

Mr Gardner said Wells had no prior convictions and was “without blemish” while his drug production scheme was operating in a house registered under his own name.

Mr Garnder said Wells was a self-made family man, having owned several businesses including an Apollo Bay caravan park, a Castlemaine bottle-shop, a Wendy‘s Milk Bar and the Lansell Lotto and News.

The court heard Bendigo man was most recently running his own lawn mowing business when he was busted dealing with a weed of a different variety.

Mr Gardner said Wells admitted to using ice and cannabis, and had underlying gambling and alcohol problems as a “form of escapism”.

“Your honour might imagine how a good man can find himself in the situation he has,” Mr Gardner told Judge Amanda Chambers.

On Wednesday June 2 Wells pleaded guilty to cultivating a commercial quantity of a narcotic plant and theft.

Police prosecutor Yildana Hardjadibrata said the Bendigo father used his “ill-gotten gains” to pay off his family mortgages and sought to seize the two homes as a proceeds of crime.

Judge Chambers said she would have to consider whether there should be a forfeiture order for one or both of the Kangaroo Flat homes financed through Wells’ illegal business.

Wells will return to Melbourne County Court on July 30, with sentencing likely to follow at a later date.