Forty-six Waitemata police officers executed ten search warrants across Auckland on the morning of 16 June 2015, targeting large-scale cannabis production and supply.[1] At an industrial unit on View Road, Henderson, they found a commercial growing operation of 800 plants, 600 of them mature, with rooms for each growth stage including a cloning nursery, two shipping containers converted to grow rooms, and a shredder for stalks.[1] Officers also opened two fish bins holding thousands of dollars of cannabis head.[1]
Across town in Beach Haven, a further 246 plants were found growing in a house basement, while police also searched a yacht at Westhaven Marina, a commercial unit in Albany and homes in Sunnyvale, Massey and central Auckland.[1] Eight people were arrested and all were expected to face supply or cultivation charges; police said buyers visited one address alone more than a hundred times a day.[1] The next day police confirmed all eight had been charged with cultivation and supply offences, two also with theft of power, and listed their North Shore and Waitakere court dates.[2]
