More than $26 million worth of cannabis has been destroyed after Victorian police arrested five people in one of the state's largest drug busts of its kind.
Major Drug Squad detectives and local police swooped on a rural property in Leongatha South, in the state's southeast, where they uncovered 6525 cannabis plants.
The discovery inside several commercial-sized hot houses on Tuesday included cannabis seedlings through to mature-sized plants, weighing 1.7 tonnes in total.
The bust was "one of the most significant and complex" hydroponic cannabis set-ups the force had seen in recent times, Victoria Police Acting Inspector Leemara Fairgrieve said on Friday.
"There were various other buildings on the property so in various locations within that property there was pretty much plants everywhere," she told reporters.
It took more than 15 officers three days to dismantle and remove all the plants from the property, with water, electricity and dams part of the well-co-ordinated and methodical set-up.
"It's a long time and a very dirty and smelly job ... it's a really hard, arduous job for the members and then at the end, all of the items were destroyed out at the property," Insp Fairgrieve said.
Four men and a woman, aged between 25 and 54, were arrested at the property and charged with cultivating and trafficking a commercial quantity of cannabis.
"This is a huge, significant impact on the illicit drug activity with this seizure," Insp Fairgrieve said.
She urged the public to report any information about illicit drug activities no matter how trivial.
"We act on all information that we receive and that's why it is so important that any form of information we get is given to us straight away so we can try and see if there's any other properties of similar nature," Insp Fairgrieve said.
The five accused were remanded in custody ahead of their next court appearance at Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court on March 7, 2025.
