Cannabis farms found in homes, casino and under M1

34 minutes ago

Pete CooperNorthamptonshire

BBC An indoor cultivation setup with rows of tall, leafy cannabis plants under artificial lighting. The plants are tall with broad, serrated green leaves. Overhead, there are multiple lights and structural beams.

In the past 12 months cannabis farms have been uncovered in village homes, an abandoned casino and even in a boarded-up drainage culvert beneath a motorway.

Northamptonshire Police said it was seeing more “unusual locations” across the county and wider region, as well as any kind of residential properties from 10-bedroom stately homes to terraced houses, used for growing drugs.

It said in the last 12 months it found 88 farms or “grows”, the majority with more than a 100 plants per find.

What is the scale of the farms, who is behind them and what are the consequences?

‘£3m grow at old casino’

In October, Northamptonshire Police found one of the largest cannabis factories to ever be uncovered in the county across four floors in an old casino building.

It has since revealed it had 7,971 cannabis plants, which had an estimated street value of between £2,451,000 and £3,268,000.

Earlier in the year a 500-plant cannabis farm was found in house in the village of Harpole, while in the village of Irchester 381 plants were found in a house, which had electrics that had been illegally bypassed.

Then in November, maintenance workers alerted police to a cannabis farm in a culvert which ran the width of the M1 carriageways near the village of Watford.

Access to the tunnel had been concealed to hide the plants.

Police described a “sophisticated set up” including extensive shelving to ensure the plants were kept above water and power diverted for lighting and other equipment.

‘Like a Netflix show’

PA Media Guy Ritchie (centre) and Theo James (right), speaking to Edith Bowman. They are sat on chairs and Guy Ritchie is talking into a microphone. There is a black background behind them.

Insp Jonathan Davis-Lyons from Northamptonshire Police said “pretty much everywhere at the moment is a fair game for people to explore setting up these grows”.

“Across our town centres and our rural areas in Northamptonshire, across the region, we’re seeing more and more unusual locations,” he said.

He said the recent finds “rang true” with TV shows like Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentleman about an underground drug empire using stately homes and even a sheep farm to grow cannabis.

The officer said the farm found under the M1 “just shows the innovation that they’ve got in terms of setting up in some unusual locations, lower footfall areas”.

‘Organised criminals’

Northamptonshire Police Two images side-by-side. On the left is rows of cannabis plants in a drainage culvert underneath the M1. Fluorescent lighting is tacked to the ceiling above the plants. On the right is a police officer wearing a fluorescent yellow waterproof suit is carrying a large cannabis plant from the drainage culvert.

Insp Davis-Lyons said the “vast majority” of cannabis farms were run by organised criminals, both from the UK and Europe.

He said the those behind the farms and factories have a business model based on the likelihood that the grow will eventually be discovered.

“If they can get two or three crops out of a grow that’s ideal for them but the sooner we can discover them then we can take the money away from the criminals”.

Insp Davis-Lyons said often the force is helped by the public reporting if they believe there is a cannabis farm near them.

He said: “It’s vacant properties that look like industrial equipment is being moved in – whether it’s ventilation, soil, the power transformers that we see.

“I think more often than not, in the initial stages, it can look like properties are being in the early stages of refurbishment or landscaping is about to take place, but that landscaping or refurbishment never happens.”

“The windows then get blocked and then there’s the odour of cannabis.”

‘Massive risks’

Northamptonshire Police A white-walled room in which the floor is covered in green-leaved plants. There are lights and other metal-covered equipment suspended from the ceiling. There are two electric fans suspended from the ceiling.

Insp Davis-Lyons said the cannabis farms cause “destruction” both to the property and neighbouring buildings.

He said: “Rather than using pots, as most of us do when we’re planting things, they’ll just use plastic sheeting against the walls, nail it up to the walls, stick the soil straight onto the floor on top of the plastic sheeting.

“So then you can have structural issues, weight issues, water leaking, irrigation, and then the massive risks from the power supply that they need to heat and ventilate the plants in there.

“That’s the real risk in terms of the fire safety aspect of it, the daisy chain and sockets to power these and ventilate them.”

Insp Davis-Lyons he was no longer shocked by the amount or scale of farms but “the amount of damage that they can cause in their setup, that’s the bit that surprises me the most”.

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