In the 17 months preceding the  formation of the CRIME Task force,there was a 60% jump in the number of active investigations into marihuana grow operations in Prince George, Williams Lake, Quesnel and 100 Mile House. .

The RCMP’s Federal Drug Enforcement Branch is working closely with regional RCMP drug sections, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) and local detachments to pilot CRIME.

Police say not only are the  grow ops illegal, the people behind  the  operations are damaging the environment by  diverting streams and  allowing chemicals and pesticides to leach into the soil.

The Cariboo region is a prime location  for new operations says North District Chief Superintendent Barry Clark, "We have  decent climate for summer growing, there are  lots of  abandoned logging roads and the region is sparsely populated."

WHile the CRIME project stated September 7th of this year, it was the bust at the Eaglet Lake grow op, east of Prince George which was the precurser to the  formation of the Task force "That was the Pilot of the Pilot, if you will" says Constable McLaughlin as Federal  officers worked collaboratively with  local  and regional detachments.  That  grow op resulted in the seizer of 18 thousand plants ( see aerial photo at right)

The  people  behind the Caribnoo grow ops are not from the Cariboo region say police. They are, in large part,  from the lower mainland  and have links to Vietnamese organized crime.

"These are not mom and pop type  grow ops" says  McLaughlin, "These large, commercial operations have direct links to the international trade of guns and cocaine."

Dr. Darryl Plecas is the Director at the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Ciminology and Criminal Justice, Univeristy of the Fraser Valley,  he says   Canada  is listed by the UN as  source country for Marijuana,  that the  people behind these grow ops  can make,  on average, $1.2 million dollars per crop and  they  can expect to  harvest  four crops  a year.  With that kind of money involved,  he says the current average fine handed  out by the  courts,  is  too  little to do any  good, "The average fine is $1200, and the average jail term, for the few who are given a jail term, is 3 to 4 months.  We don't  have to send everyone to jail, but there are some who need to  go to jail."

Plecas says the pressure has to be  put on these  crime groups now,  "We have a situation here where the problem has grown at least ten fold of where it was a decade ago" .

Dr. Plecas made  a very chilling  comparison between the Cariboo  grow op situation now, and the violent cocaine drug cartels that developed  in South America, "It is fair comment to say,  we are Colombia north"