ABC News
In short:
Two men who helped grow and maintain thousands of cannabis plants at a regional Victorian farm have been jailed for 12-and-a-half years each.
The drug haul, which weighed five tonnes, was a record seizure for Victoria Police.
Three others allegedly involved skipped bail and remain on the run.
During the uncertainty of the pandemic, Duy Duc Dao and Quoc Van Tran turned to a new profession to bolster their finances: horticulture.
Within months, the pair were growing and tending an illegal cannabis crop the size of a soccer field at Toolamba, on the outskirts of Shepparton in northern Victoria.
Two huge greenhouses fitted with lighting and irrigation held 8,805 plants.
Power and water meters on the property had been tampered with to keep the operation secret.
When police raided the site on February 9, 2022, they found large power boards with timers, water tanks, power tools, fertilisers and a whiteboard reading “Pollinate Monday, Wednesday, Friday”.
Dao, Tran and three others were arrested.
The County Court heard today that the haul set a state record.
“It represents the largest reported seizure of cannabis by weight in Victoria,”
Judge Pardeep Tiwana said.
Officers had to drive trucks onto a weighbridge to weigh the plants, which totalled 5.1 tonnes, more than 20 times the threshold for a “large commercial quantity”.
Police said the crop would have been worth $22 million to $26 million if it had matured and been sold in bulk.
Dao and Tran pleaded guilty to cultivating a large commercial quantity of cannabis and were each sentenced to 12-and-a-half years’ jail.
They will have to serve a minimum of eight years and four months before they are eligible for parole.
Three others allegedly involved skipped bail on the eve of their trial and remain on the run, the judge said.
Offenders had clean criminal records before bust
Judge Tiwana said Dao and Tran were “not mere crop sitters” and had been trusted by the ringleaders.
“You along with others sought to bring to fruition an illegal operation that would have yielded mouth-watering profits to those higher up in the hierarchy,” he said.
Both men claimed they had not initially realised the farm work they signed up for involved growing illegal drugs.
But the judge said they made “no effort to walk away” once the scheme’s true purpose became clear.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-21/men-sentenced-toolamba-cannabis-crop-vic-court/107176642
