Ontario police seize over 122,000 illegal cannabis plants in less than four months

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have seized over 122,000 illegal cannabis plants over the last four months.

On Thursday, OPP announced that their Regional Community Street Crimes Unit along with members of the OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau (OCEB), Emergency Response Team (ERT) and Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU) have seized over $143 million in cannabis with 195 arrests made, “in the takedown of several criminal enterprises exploiting the Health Canada medical, personal and designate cannabis production regime.”

“The targets were involved with large-scale, sophisticated illegal cannabis production, sale and distribution operations,” the release said.

“These criminal enterprises exploit Health Canada registrations to produce or designate someone to produce cannabis for medical purposes by diverting cannabis authorized to be grown for medical purposes to the illegal market.”

OPP

From July 1 to October 15, investigators executed 52 warrants across Ontario and laid 327 federal Cannabis Act and Criminal Code charges from Possession of Cannabis for the Purposes of Selling to Careless Storage of a Firearm.

The OPP seized over 122,000 cannabis plants from 52 large-volume illegal operations, with 7,000 plants from one site alone.