The head of a Vietnamese immigrant family that ran a $250,000-a-year cannabis growing operation at two Christchurch dwellings was jailed today for three years.
Huyan Van Tran was sent down on two charges of cultivating cannabis.
He pleaded guilty and admitted that he was a principal behind the growing operation that went on for more than a year.
His daughter, 21-year-old Canterbury University student Trang Xuan Tran, admitted a lesser role and got six months' home detention.
She said she had helped by translating growing manuals for her father, but police also found her fingerprints on some of the growing equipment.
Tran's wife, Suong Tuyet Vo, admitted knowingly permitting premises to be used for the drug offending and was ordered to do 220 hours of community work.
The Crown will also launch an action aimed at seizing the family-owned dwelling.
The charges followed a police raid on a house in suburban Spreydon where they found 143 cannabis plants growing in a sophisticated operation.
Growing rooms were lined with silver foil, and heat lamps, fans, transformers, ducting, fertilisers and sprays were being used.
Police described it as one of the largest and most successful operations seen in Christchurch.
Police then searched the family's rented nearby property and found a similar set up with 66 plants.
They estimated that the two operations could have been producing cannabis at 12-week cycles, worth $250,000 over a year.
Judge Colin Doherty said higher power bills showed that the growing operations had been going on for more than a year. He said the father had told police he was growing the cannabis to alleviate the financial stress he was under.
None of the family had any previous convictions in New Zealand.
