More than 170 cannabis plants were seized during the second major drug sting in Wendouree in under a week.
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Officers of the Ballarat Divisional Response Unit found the plants on Tuesday morning at a property in Cedric Street, Wendouree.
Ballarat Divisional Response Unit Sergeant Kori Fraser said the search was a result of information given to police from the public.
No arrests had been made and no one was in custody following the raid.
“(We) again located a commercial hydroponic set-up,” Sergeant Fraser said.
“It’s still an ongoing investigation at this stage, but we have a couple of targets.”
Sergeant Fraser said the hydroponic operation appeared to take up the majority of the house and was spread across multiple rooms.
A Cedric Street neighbour said on Tuesday he had been suspicious of the house for more than a month.
He said residents of the raided house kept to themselves, but said there were occasions when “people come and go in the middle of the night”.
“I’ve been pretty suss on the house for a while,” the neighbour said.
“Some nights you could smell marijuana, the odd night you would see someone rock up and there would be a light on and that would be it – I also reckon there would be a timer that came on every night.
“I also think another house on the other side had power problems.”
A Powercor team had arrived at the property to disconnect the house from mains power.
DRU officers are continuing their investigations and spent Tuesday morning collecting plants and equipment as evidence and loading them into a truck.
Sergeant Fraser said the Cedric Street set-up was similar to one found during a raid on a house in Maple Avenue, Wendouree, on Friday.
During that raid approximately 130 cannabis plants were found.
Members of the Criminal Investigation Unit are also continuing their investigations into a drug raid that occurred early last Tuesday morning at a property on the corner of Talbot and Bell streets in Redan.
A tip-off from a passerby alerted police and led to the Redan drug raid, when approximately 150 cannabis plants were seized.
The total value of the cannabis plants, if they had reached maturity, was estimated at $3000 per plant.
Read the full story on the cannabis industry’s push into Ballarat here