Here's the flip:
Marijuana traffickers used infrared cameras to locate and 'steal' crops from grow houses
In a twist to the lucrative criminal growth industry of indoor marijuana crops, two men have admitted using heat-detection cameras to locate and remove plants from suburban houses.
A Melbourne court heard that Danny Joe Szabo and Jano Matar used FLIRs - forward looking infrared radiometers - to detect "heat emitted from residences in the growing process".
Prosecutor Hayley Bate said that FLIR heat detection guns were "commonly used to locate a (marijuana) grow house emitting a strong heat signature".
Ms Bate said police intercepted calls between the pair that revealed marijuana was being located by identifying the location of "grow houses".
Ms Bate told Melbourne Magistrates Court this week that in a call on November 18 last year Szabo questioned Matar about using a "gun" the previous night and was told that there are "pictures" and "old ones" and "it showed us".
She told magistrate Ann Collins that investigators identified the term "gun" as code for a FLIR device and that "pictures" were obtained of previous crop houses Szabo had visited.
In another call, Matar questioned Szabo if anything was "out there" and that he has "two cameras on the go".
"Both discuss looking in the Point Cook area and state they will get the cameras working both sides of the street," Ms Bate said.
When police later arrested Matar at home in St Albans, they found two FLIR heat detection camera boxes in a garage and a FLIR camera in a car in the driveway that were stolen earlier in a burglary.
Matar, 37, formerly of St Albans, and Szabo, 22, formerly of Melton West, each pleaded guilty to trafficking marjiuana and other offences.
Ms Bate, who did not oppose a defence application for the charges to be heard by a magistrate, said Szabo was the target of a police operation.
William Barker, for Szabo, said his client, who then had drug issues that included ice use, had been "couch surfing" but had a limited criminal history.
Mr Barker said a number of others had been involved in the offending and that Szabo's 187 days on remand since his arrest was his first time in jail.
Taking into account his time on remand, Ms Collins released him on a 12 month community corrections order (CCO) with conditions that included treatment and rehabilitation for drugs, judicial monitoring and supervision with assessment for mental health issues.
James Mortley, for Matar, said his client's role in the offending had been to "strip" the plants and to cut and dry them and in return he was paid after providing the drug to others.
Mr Mortley said Matar, who had an ice problem and a "severe" addiction to gambling, had used proceeds from the "opportunist" offending to support his lifestyle and he conceded that he had benefited from and "taken advantage of the illegal enterprise of others".
Ms Collins said she was not prepared to release him on a CCO before she received a forensic assessment.
(http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/marijuana-traffickers-used-infrared-cameras-to-locate-and-steal-crops-from-grow-houses-20150618-ghrajw.html)
ps: I think that we should consider that us the membership, come from many different countries, different bullshit laws, but swim in one direction with one common cause ..lol