Police bust national drug syndicate sourcing QLD farms for cannabis

Police have seized $23m worth of cannabis from a property west of Brisbane, disrupting an alleged drug syndicate scouting Queensland farms to use for massive cannabis plantations.

Queensland police have disrupted a national drug syndicate whose members were scouting for farms in isolated parts of the state to use for massive cannabis plantations, it will be alleged.

Detectives this week seized $23 million worth of cannabis during a raid on a farm at Coominya in the Somerset region, where it will be alleged thousands of plants were being grown in sophisticated greenhouses.

It is the 12th cannabis farm police have shut down, allegedly involving the syndicate.

Aerial footage of the property shows 19 greenhouses lined up beside a dam, each one measuring 70m long.

Inside, police allegedly discovered nearly 3000 cannabis plants.

A commercial-sized cannabis production facility on a property on Coominya, Queensland. Source: Queensland Police Service.

Another 1500 seedlings were allegedly found inside two hydroponic grow rooms inside a house and shipping container on the farm.

There was nobody at the property when police raided it on May 15, but three days later, detectives arrested a 26-year-old man while executing a search warrant at a Heathwood address.

Drug and Serious Crime Group Detective Inspector Brad Phelps said setups like the one found in Coominya can produce three or four crops per year.

“It’s a significant disruption to an organised crime syndicate,” he said.

Inspector Phelps alleged the syndicate was involved in trafficking, as well as the commercial production of cannabis.

“And that’s not just in Queensland, it’s across a number of jurisdictions, including New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory,” he said.

“But certainly it was a large-scale production facility that had been set up on this property for the sole purpose of producing cannabis.”

He said police had arrested one man and charged him with producing a commercial quantity of a dangerous drug and were still looking for others.

A commercial-sized cannabis production facility on a property on Coominya, Queensland. Source: Queensland Police Service.

“What we’re finding (is) these are isolated rural locations where this production is occurring. Locals, post-event, often come forward with information,” Inspector Phelps.

“We’d really like to encourage them to come forward early, report information to Crime Stoppers, or to police, about your suspicions.

“These production processes are extremely large.

“They take a lot of human and physical resources to establish and then continue to operate.”

“We really rely on the public - they’re our eyes and ears in those areas, to come forward, provide information about suspicious activity and enable us to then conduct investigations.”

Originally published as Police bust national drug syndicate sourcing QLD farms for cannabis