Recent Exploitation of Cannabis Grow Houses in Australia

There has been news lately that there has been a recent exploitation of cannabis grow houses in Australia and those being exploited are Vietnamese tourists and students.

Many of them were exploited because of their desperate need to capitalize on earning thousands of dollars in taking care of cannabis crops in Australia.

This discovery has exposed some troublesome loopholes used in the Australian visa system as one immigration agent indicated.

There was a certain migration company with offices located in both Vietnam and Australia that has been representatives for these Vietnam tourists and students who have become cannabis crop sitters and were caught by police as the cannabis grow houses were raided recently. There were about 300 cannabis crop sitters found in one of the cannabis grow houses.

An Organized Group

Upon investigating, ABC discovered that the cannabis grow houses located in Australia are more common than law enforcement had originally suspected. The organized crime groups in Vietnam are at the center of this undercover money making enterprise.

The organized crime groups in Vietnam have a three tier model with the top members of the group insulated from the cannabis crop sitters. How does this crime operation work? Well, tourists and students from Vietnam are getting visas to Australia and instead of doing what they got their visas to do in Australia; they are working as crop sitters without the proper work authorization.

The Ensnarement

When caught in any of the cannabis grow houses, the Vietnamese tourists and students in Australia would usually insist that they were ensnared into these jobs upon arriving in Australia. However, many of the crop sitters travel to this particular country in hope of become rich as cannabis crop sitters. Many of the young students from Vietnam enter the country specifically to become crop sitters.

So this is not about ensnarement as many have indicated. It is about making money in high amounts as some of them are even offered up to $30,000 to work as crop sitters. Young students working in these cannabis grow houses see this kind of pay as a lot of money and the greed is enough to make them want to do this even when it might be illegitimate.

To reduce this immigration problem, it probably would be best for the Australian government to use registered immigration agents for the visa application process. However, as of now, the government has not taken that advice from any migration agent. One reason could be that the Vietnamese government is the prime owner of Vietnamese migration agents and there is no communication between both governments to stop this problem.

The Australian government relies on a lot of the revenue that is derived from international students coming into the country so they may not want to mess that up. The country makes up to $2 billion each year from fees associated with student visa applications. For that reason, there is not much impetus to change this.

Fraud Committed

The Vietnamese migration brokers will sometimes create fraudulent visa applications by falsifying identities and financial records of tourists and students in order to secure their visas. In many instances, these fraudulent activities do not get noticed right away and so by the time the raid is done on cannabis grow houses, many visa applications have gone through the system and many people will probably not be found.

In addition, by the time some of these people are deported from Australia, no checks have been done on the initial visa application to see how they got into the country. If this was done, then the government may be able to nip it in the bud before it keeps going on.

Learn more about cannabis grow houses all over the world by visiting the Cannabis Training University's cannabis courses.