Police spotter planes over the Napier and Hastings urban areas led to 26 city properties being searched in a cannabis recovery operation targeting growers and dealers.[1][2] Over the month-long operation, which covered the Eastern police district from Central Hawke’s Bay to the East Cape, officers found about 14,000 cannabis plants and 13 kilograms of cannabis, and apprehended 185 people, many facing supply, cultivation and cannabis-oil manufacturing charges.[1][2][3]
Thirty staff searched 210 rural and urban properties and seized 35 firearms, including shotguns, sawn-off shotguns, handguns and .22s, from houses where drug offending was taking place; a small amount of cocaine was also found at one house.[1][2] Flying over city suburbs proved lucrative, with many backyard plants spotted from the air leading to searches of dealing houses holding large quantities ready for sale.[1][2] In Wairoa, six properties were searched and five people arrested on cannabis and firearms charges, while a Gisborne property held 430 mature plants in a back orchard plus a sophisticated grow room in a haybarn.[1][2][3]
Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Foster of the Eastern Organised Crime Group said growers would take their chances anywhere, that indoor growing was increasing each year, and that police relied on the public to report suspicious neighbours.[1][2]
