Man jailed after 211 cannabis plants found inside Point Cook home

From the street, it looks like any other family home in Point Cook. But when police raided this expensive property, what they found is something that would have lingering effects on its next owners.

More than 200 cannabis plants were found at this home on Sanctuary Lakes South Blvd, Point Cook.

A four-bedroom home on an exclusive Point Cook street has been used as a cannabis crop house.

Tuong Nguyen, 49, was paid $600 to stay in the Sanctuary Lakes South Blvd house, believed to be worth up to $800,000, and mind the merchandise, a court has heard.

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When police raided the property in August last year, the Vietnamese national was sitting on the floor of the living room and a “sophisticated hydroponic set-up” was found upstairs.

More than 200 cannabis plants — some as tall as 1.5m — were found growing in all four bedrooms of the home.

Nguyen pleaded guilty to one charge of cultivation of a commercial quantity of cannabis, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail.

But his lawyer told the County Court the illegal immigrant had succumbed to financial pressures when he agreed to become a crop sitter.

The court heard the Vietnamese government had forced Nguyen to quit his job as punishment for breaking the country’s strict two-child policy and he had come to Australia to make money to send home to his family.

Judge David Sexton said photos of the Point Cook home showed “a professional, sophisticated and well-organised criminal endeavour” but there was no evidence to suggest Nguyen had set it up.

“While your role was limited to that of a ‘crop sitter’, your role was vital for the success of this enterprise, as without cultivation of the crop there would be no sale of it and no profit to anyone,” he said.

“Given your absence of prior criminality, your family’s support, the fact that your offending was not driven by drug addiction but rather triggered, it would seem, by financial pressures, and finally your plans to reside with your family in Vietnam in the future, I have formed the view that your prospects of rehabilitation are reasonably good.”

Judge Sexton sentenced Nguyen to 20 months in prison.