Project Charlemagne passes 148,400 plants seized in Quebec crackdown
RCMP Sergeant Richard Martel said Project Charlemagne, a joint task force raiding indoor growers north of Montreal, had netted 148,400 plants, 768 pounds of buds, 622 kilograms of shake and more than 400 arrests since September 2001. The totals were published on 5 June 2003, with 23 grow busts already announced that year.
🇨🇦 Laurentians and Lanaudière, Quebec · Quebec, Canada
Arrested
400
Plants destroyed
148,400
Cannabis
970.36 kg
Project Charlemagne, a joint RCMP and local police task force targeting indoor hydroponic growers in municipalities north of Montreal, had seized 148,400 cannabis plants since September 2001, RCMP Sergeant Richard Martel said in early June 2003.[1]The RCMP-led, multi-agency task force works out of its Saint-Jérôme detachment with officers from five local forces, the Sûreté du Québec and Kanesatake Mohawk police, and focuses on illegal marijuana cultivation and production in the area.[1][2]
Police had announced 23 busts in 2003 alone, and more than 400 people had been arrested overall.[1]Beyond the plants, the task force had netted 768 pounds of buds, 622 kilograms of shake, 1.5 kilograms of hash and $226,969 in cash.[1]
Disputed values
Marijuana Party leader Marc-Boris St-Maurice said police consistently overstate crop values about tenfold, making each grower look worse in court and justifying calls for harsher penalties.[1]
The article names individual 2003 busts, including arrests in Oka on 30 April and Saint-Pierre-de-Broughton on 23 May, each a separate event left out here.
Martel gave arrests as more than 400; the report records 400 as the stated floor.
No photograph of the task force's raids with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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