On December 7th, Queensland Police’s Toowoomba Tactical Crime Squad intercepted a vehicle on the Warrego Highway near Postsman Ridge Road at Heildon.
Once they searched the vehicle, police found a “large cardboard box” containing 20 bags of cannabis in the backseat and a further 78 bags of cannabis in four boxes in the back of the utility. Together, the bags contained roughly 44 kilograms of cannabis worth an estimated $264,000.Â
This is already a staggering amount of cannabis, but way more was yet to come.
On December 8th, police executed a search warrant at a storage facility in Toowoomba. This search turned up five more boxes of cannabis that contained 59 kilograms of cannabis worth an estimated $354,000.
Finally, on December 9th, police raided a property on Willow Springs Road in Clifton (roughly 40 minutes from Toowoomba). Here, police seized a “well-established cannabis crop” that included 3,015 plants of varied sizes. Queensland police noted that this greenhouse was an “extensive” setup and had “sophisticated lighting, irrigation and ventilation systems.” The cannabis plants they nabbed from the facility are valued at an estimated $10.5 million.
Police have arrested a 37-year-old man from New South Wales in connection with the cannabis operation.
The man, who drove the Warrego Highway truck on December 7th, appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on February 14th. He was charged with producing, supplying and trafficking dangerous drugs, offence to buy or possess a schedule 4 medicine, four counts of possessing dangerous drugs and two counts of possessing items used in connection with a crime. “Dangerous drugs” is police phrasing, not Cannaus’.
The cannabis seized in Toowoomba has “since been destroyed” alongside 2.2 tonnes of cannabis burned by Australian police throughout 2021.
