The Capital Region Police have confiscated approximately 5,000 cannabis plants so far this year, most of which were discovered during the latter part of this month. Police are believed to have mapped out grow houses with heat sensors from air.
An expert in such thermal cameras told Morgunbladid that locating grow houses that are hidden inside industrial or private housing with such methods is certainly possible.
The latest cannabis grow house was uncovered on Saturday in the basement of a semidetached house under construction in the new Reykjavík neighborhood of Úlfarsárdalur, Fréttabladid reports.
The wall between the basements of the two apartments had been torn down where police discovered 200 fully-grown plants. The owner of one of the apartments has worked in gardening.
Three men were brought in for questioning in relation to the case. They are also suspected of being involved with another cannabis grow house that was busted in Hafnarfjördur, a neighboring town of Reykjavík, a few days ago.
Karl Steinar Valsson, head of the Capital Region Police’s narcotics department, said it is difficult to estimate at this stage how much marijuana or hashish could have been produced from the cannabis plants that have been confiscated this year.
“The only thing we can say for sure is that an amount could be processed weighing hundreds of kilos,” Valsson added.
According to the website of the National Center of Addiction Medicine (SÁÁ), the current street price for one gram of marijuana is ISK 3,400 (USD 28, EUR 21).
So if 300 kilos of marijuana could have been produced from the cannabis plants confiscated, their market worth would amount to approximately ISK 1 billion (USD 8.2 million, EUR 6.2 million), Fréttabladid concludes.
Click here to read about the recent bust of another cannabis grow house.
