A massive marijuana growing operation in Langley was licensed to grow medicinal marijuana, but was way over the allowable number of plants.
Three Surrey residents and one Vancouver resident had licences to produce 989 plants at the facility, according to a lawsuit filed by the provincial Ministry of Justice seeking to seize the seven-acre property on 264 Street and Zero Avenue.
The B.C. Supreme Court claim names Truong’s Enterprises Limited (TEL), a company registered in Clearbrook, and company president Quan Truong and company secretary Chirapon Truong.
It was filed shortly after police raided the former farm on Jan. 27, finding 1,613 marijuana plants in a trailer and an undisclosed number of other plants in the barn.
Police arrested 12 people, including two from Langley, one from Surrey, six from Vancouver, two from Victoria, and the company president, whose address was not disclosed.
The statement of claim was made under civil forfeiture regulations that allow authorities to go after property linked to criminal activity.
It says the property has been used as a grow-op “for some or all of the time” since November of 1993.
It describes a “commercial-sized” grow operation spread throughout 26 grow rooms in the farm, with more in a “light brown mobile trailer” on the site.
The farm was purchased by TEL using a mix of borrowed money and cash from “the previous cultivation and trafficking of marijuana” the statement alleges.
The lawsuit specifically accuses the defendants of violating criminal laws against the “production, cultivation, storage, concealment, and/or trafficking of controlled substances” and “laundering the proceeds of unlawful activity” by using money from the illegal pot growing to pay the mortgage, property taxes and for improvements to the buildings.
It seeks an order turning over the property to the provincial government.