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Chilliwack marijuana grow-op property owner facing 18 months jail

Chang Xu to be sentenced in April after being convicted of illegal production, trafficking in 2017
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Some of the 3,200 plants and 32 kilograms of cannabis seized from a Gillanders Road marijuana grow-operation in Chilliwack on March 14, 2017 in Chilliwack. (RCMP)

More than two years after cannabis became legal in Canada, a sentencing date has been set for the property owner where a largescale grow-operation was busted back in 2017.

Chang Hu Xu was found guilty of production of a controlled substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking after a six-day trial that started in August 2019 and ended in March 2020.

Federal Crown counsel asked for 18 to 24 months jail for the owner of the Rosedale property busted with a large marijuana grow operation. Defence asked for a conditional sentence order.

A decision by Judge David Silverman into Xu’s fate was set for April 20 in Chilliwack provincial court on March 8.

At trial, Silverman found Xu to be an unreliable witness in his own defence.

It was March 24, 2017 when six people were arrested at the Gillanders Road property as RCMP executed a search warrant. Police found more than 3,200 marijuana plants in various stages of growth between a greenhouse and the residence.

They also found 13 garbage bags of dry bud, which was seen by The Progress at the front of the property as officers investigated that day.

• READ MORE: VIDEO: RCMP seize 3,200 marijuana plants at Chilliwack farm

At trial, an expert testified the plants could produce a crop valued at between $191,000 and $570,000. If the plants produced between three and four crops annually, the production value estimated at between $573,000 and $2.3 million.

“This was a large-scale commercial for profit marijuana enterprises,” Crown counsel Chris Tait told the court. “Mr. Xu possessed this marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.”

The five-acre property in Rosedale where the marijuana was grown was owned by Xu, but he is, and was before the arrest, a resident of Ontario.


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