The police seized 30 weapons and approximately 600 marijuana plants at a raid of a farm at Faleatiu Friday.
Police Commissioner Egon Lincoln Keil led the operation which also arrested 4 people who are now under police custody.
Faleatiu is well known to police as an officer was shot dead there during a raid in the 1970s and also injured police officers and damaged police vehicles and a villager shot dead during an early morning raid several years ago.
According to Commissioner Keil, the area where they found the illegal drugs was high up in the mountains and the officers involved had to walk a long way to the farm.
Asked if there was any resistance from the accused, Keil said no and he was not sure if the farm belongs to one family or various individuals.
He said the accused have relatives who are serving time in prison.
The Police Commissioner was grateful that no one was hurt during the raid.
Keil believes the place where the farm is located has not been visited by police for quite some time.
The raid involved sixty police officers and 17 vehicles were used to execute the morning raid.
He acknowledged the patience and courage of the team in the success of the raid.
The raid took some time to put together, with various police units being part of the team, said Keil.
“We have a narcotics unit which does a lot of intelligence activities in putting together information,” he said.
It also involves a Task Unit Tangible Operation Section which is the first of its kind in Samoa which deals with tangible dangerous and high risk police operations.
“We also solicit help from the Australian Federal Police and our internal and external partners,” said Keil.
He explained that such operations need a lot of ‘hush-hush’ in-order for it to succeed.
The Commissioner said Samoa needs to be safe especially with 3 big events such as the Commonwealth Youth Games to be hosted here in Samoa soon.
Recently, police scored another successful raid where 4 people were arrested during a raid of what seemed to be a laboratory to manufacture methamphetamine and also seized a sniper gun and other illegal weapons and about $30,000 cash of various currencies.