Grass plantation discovered

Men climbed out of cellar hole to meet police

An anonymous tip-off led the police to a former bar last Wednesday.(Bild: LPD Wien)

A tip-off led police to a large-scale cannabis plantation in a former pub in Vienna-Penzing on Wednesday. When investigators checked the premises, they came across two men who immediately tried to flee.

An attentive resident had reported to the investigators that suspicious persons had been going in and out of a former pub on the first floor of an apartment building for months. The strong smell of cannabis and repeated power cuts in the building had aroused his suspicion.

When the officers searched the premises, they came across two men from Albania (38 and 44 years old) who had crept up from the cellar through a chiseled hole in the floor.

In the cellar, the officers then came across a cannabis plant nursery with 843 ripe cannabis plants in bloom.(Bild: LPD Wien)

843 plants ready for harvest seized
Despite an escape attempt, the men were arrested. Investigators found a cannabis plantation with 843 ripe-to-harvest plants in the cellar. A short time later, the 42-year-old tenant of the premises was also located and arrested. The three men will now be charged with drug trafficking and deprivation of energy as part of a criminal organization. The 38-year-old and the 44-year-old were taken to a prison, the 42-year-old Austrian remains at large for the time being.