South Australia police raided five hydroponic stores and several homes across Adelaide on 24 September 2008 at the end of the seven-month Operation Desire. Police reported 72 people and seized 145 kg of dried cannabis, 434 plants and $182,000; the stores were accused of setting up grows and buying back cannabis for interstate sale.
🇦🇺 Adelaide, South Australia · South Australia, Australia
Police charged the owners or managers of five hydroponic stores with running a cannabis-growing ring after raids across Adelaide during the week ending Wednesday 24 September 2008.[1]Detective Superintendent Linda Fellows said the stores had helped customers set up hydroponic growing systems, arranged electricians, advised on growing drugs and bought back dried cannabis to sell interstate.[1]
The raids closed the seven-month Operation Desire, which began that February and took in the five stores plus several homes.[1]Officers also charged a 22-year-old New South Wales man found with 17 kg of dried cannabis at Adelaide airport, and found $90,000 believed to be the proceeds of that haul in a northern-suburbs house.[1]Since February police had reported 72 people and seized145 kg of dried cannabis, 434 plants and $182,000.[1]
A week later the Advertiser confirmed five hydroponics-store managers had been arrested the previous week, and put the drug investigation branch’s twelve-month haul from cannabis trafficking at $1.6 million in cash, 330 kg of dried cannabis and more than 2,000 mature plants, with 114 people charged.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Arrested
72
of them seized
434
Cannabis
145 kg
Cash confiscated
AUD 182,000
Agency
South Australia Police
Agency type
Police
Cannabis
Herbal cannabis (145 kg); Living plants (434 plants)
No outcomes for the 72 people reported or the five store managers are recorded in the opened sources.
A week later the Advertiser put the drug branch's wider twelve-month cannabis haul at 330 kg, 2,000 plants, $1.6 million and 114 charged, a broader scope than the Operation Desire totals used here.
No photograph of the raids with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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Victoria Police arrested and charged two Highett men, aged 48 and 67, after a 29 October 2026 warrant on Peace Street. Officers seized cannabis, hydroponic equipment and other drugs; one man is remanded and the other is on bail.
