Police nab two men for growing marijuana

 A FATHER of three and another man are in police custody in Wewak after they were arrested for allegedly cultivating and possessing marijuana.

Both are from Makon settlement, just a few minutes’ drive from Wewak town.

Thousands of kina worth of marijuana was allegedly confiscated from them during a dawn raid by Wewak police at the settlement on Tuesday.

The two men, originally from the Wosera-Gawi district of East Sepik, are longtime settlers at Makon but villagers had allegedly raised concern about their activities.

A police team led by members of the National Criminal Intelligent Unit (NCIU) rounded up the two suspects at their houses and they led the police to two marijuana gardens.

“The two gardens were a good distance from their houses, so police had to walk a fair distance to destroy the gardens,” a source said.

A third suspect escaped. Police uprooted 29 marijuana plants and they found in the possession of the two suspects a 5kg bag containing about 3.2kg of dried marijuana and more than 20 packages.