Geoff Thompson reported this story on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 18:46:00

BRENDAN TREMBATH: It's a multimillion dollar criminal industry and it could be thriving just next door.



Since April, more than $25 million worth of hydroponically grown cannabis plants have been found in suburban Sydney.



It's a dangerous business, with some hot-houses booby-trapped.



PM's Geoff Thompson joined police on a cannabis house raid in south-western Sydney this morning.



(sound of kids)



GEOFF THOMPSON: Ten AM approaches in Sydney's South West.



With kids playing in front yards and lorikeets squawking in the trees, this quiet street just a few blocks behind Macquarie Fields police station was the epitome of sleepy suburbia; until right now.



(sound of police banging on door and shouting)



GEOFF THOMPSON: About a dozen police officers smash their way through the front door of a single story red brick corner house, confident of what they expect to find inside.



Cameron Henshaw is an acting inspector with the South West Metropolitan Region Enforcement Squad.



CAMERON HENSHAW: Estimates would be the three rooms of this single story residence being used to grow cannabis plants and they're just ready to be harvested. So it's a good time to get it so they'd be full of cannabis bud.



GEOFF THOMPSON: You got here just in time?



CAMERON HENSHAW: Yeah.



GEOFF THOMPSON: It's the 74th such raid on a house in Sydney's southwest since April. Nearly all of them have uncovered hidden crops of hydroponically grown cannabis plants thriving under powerful lamps blaring night and day in hot houses which from the outside look like any other home.



What's often left behind are shocked and bewildered neighbours.



Would you have known that living next door?



NEIGHBOURS: No way, our kids are playing around here all the time and they only move down here recently hey?



GEOFF THOMPSON: Right next door there could be up to a million dollars worth of cannabis growing and you wouldn't even know.



NEIGHBOUR (two women): No. That would be shame. We was very proud of our neighbours, we know each other and talk with each other. I just don't know that neighbour, yeah.



GEOFF THOMPSON: They came and went in the night?



NEIGHBOUR (two women): Yeah I think that's how they are.



GEOFF THOMPSON: They never came round for a cup of tea?



NEIGHBOUR (two women): No. Not like us we just talk, say hello. I only say hello to the man once but he look at me strange (laughs). But I didn't know.



GEOFF THOMPSON: And what did he look like?



NEIGHBOUR (two women): I think he looks Vietnamese.



(sound of police tearing up house)



GEOFF THOMPSON: Called operation Zambesi, it's the biggest urban cannabis eradication program ever undertaken in Sydney's southwest.



It's designed to be highly visible and intended to disrupt Sydney's cannabis trade while, police sources say, attempting to avoid raiding houses when the so-called crop-sitters or house-sitters are actually there.



In most cases, they are not serious criminals but what have been called, "sacrificial lambs" lured into the drug trade by chronic debts often accrued from poker machines.



A recent study of parole records found that almost three quarters of more than 600 convicted drug offenders in Sydney's southwest said gambling debts led to their crimes.



But sometimes the house-sitters are caught out. In a recent raid on a house in Dundas, a woman with gambling debts was living there with her young twins. Neighbours said they were suspicious because a big pool in the backyard had been left to go mouldy.



Assistant commissioner Frank Minnelli is commander of Sydney's southwest metropolitan region.



FRANK MINNELLI: The majority of people that are in these premises are referred to as house-sitters, the majority were of Asian background.



We have found and on three occasions we've actually charged persons for actually being there with young children.



(sounds of police collecting cannabis equipment)



GEOFF THOMPSON: Today no-one was home but there was tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and almost 100 cannabis plants, most of them more than metre tall, and worth half a million dollars on the street.



Acting inspector Cameron Henshaw again.



CAMERON HENSHAW: It looks like the cannabis plants are almost ready for harvest, they've got large cannabis heads on them.



GEOFF THOMPSON: Heads the size of golf balls really aren't they.



CAMERON HENSHAW: Some are almost the size of tennis balls by the looks of things there.



GEOFF THOMPSON: And that's the way they want it to sell it now.



CAMERON HENSHAW: Yeah. Then they'll just remove them and dissect them and sell it individually.



GEOFF THOMPSON: And this is powerful stuff?



CAMERON HENSHAW: Yeah. Well you can smell it from out here.



GEOFF THOMPSON: Indeed you could.



This is Geoff Thompson in Macquarie Fields reporting for PM.