Owners shocked after family home turned into cannabis farm linked to Vietnamese crime

The owners of a South Auckland property that was unwittingly rented out to tenants linked to Vietnamese organised crime say their family home for 20 years has been left significantly damaged.

A woman, who helped manage the property on behalf of her parents, told the Herald the four-bedroom home in Takanini was raided by police two weeks ago, with the tenants abandoning the property and leaving “rubbish everywhere”, broken doors, a car and switchboards used “to steal power”.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said police told her there was “cannabis cultivation” at the property and that everything had been cleared.

Neighbours alerted her parents about the raid about 8am on September 15, with police vans and officers wearing hazard masks swarming the property.

Police confirmed to the Herald that the sting was part of a “transtasman week of action” against illicit drug activities, resulting in raids on grow houses in suburban properties across Auckland linked to Vietnamese organised crime and 270kg of cannabis being seized.

As part of the police operation, 85 search warrants were carried out across the country and 34 people were arrested for drug offences.

A Takanini home was turned into a cannabis grow house by tenants linked to Vietnamese organised crime.

The woman, who lives in Coromandel, said she went to inspect the home – which had been rented out for less than three months to the new occupants – and discovered significant damage to the property.

“There was just rubbish everywhere,” she said. “In the rooms, there were pots, lights hanging. It smelled disgusting.”

She said the tenants broke all the doors off and put their own doors in, stripped the home of its ventilation, caused “a lot of water damage” and installed switchboards to steal electricity.

“There was a camera inside the kitchen. So they were watching everything.

“It’s going to cost thousands of dollars to get everything repaired.”

She said, in hindsight, the tenants – who are currently on the run – displayed strange behaviour since renting the home in July.

The tenants had requested inspections to be conducted every four months because “they’re quite busy”.

“When she was typing, she could speak English great, but in real life, she couldn’t really speak much English.”

The tenants allegedly used a switchboard to "steal power".

Neighbours also mentioned a strong scent of cannabis that could be smelled from outside the property.

The woman said it was “shocking” for her family to learn that their home for 20 years, where she and her brother grew up, was used for criminal activity.

“We’ve never touched cannabis before. It was quite a religious place, our home, because my grandparents were quite religious. They actually passed away in that house ... It was quite shocking.”

The area was “quite safe” and “none of that stuff really happens here”.

She hoped it will “spread awareness about what can happen to landlords” and “the impact this can have on a family”.