Cannabis: How the drug farmers are being weeded out in Shropshire

In 2015 three drug lords who used a premises in Telford as part of the UK’s biggest known cannabis empire – netting them £200 million – were jailed for over 25 years.

The cannabis farm empire included an isolated business premises off Granville Road, set behind imposing iron fencing and covert CCTV cameras, where 1,500 cannabis plants were recovered.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the gang had netted an estimated £50 million a year from their criminal enterprise over a four-year period.

In 2017 a cannabis factory worth £2.5 million was found in a former MOT testing station in Telford.

The factory on Ironbridge Road in Madeley was raided and 2,800 cannabis plants were found.

West Mercia Police said the find was “a very significant discovery of a sophisticated cannabis cultivation, of an industrial scale”.

A 27-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of the production of cannabis but was later released. There were no other arrests made.

Up to £400,000 of cannabis plants were discovered by police after they raided a house in Dawley. In excess of 400 plants were discovered in the house with one plant alone is thought to be valued at around £1,000.

Then in July 2018 police found between 200 and 300 plants worth about £150,000 growing in a house in Wellington.

Vulnerable

“Tackling serious and organised crime is a priority for West Mercia Police and we know there are links to cannabis farms and the supply of cannabis,” says Chief Superintendent Kevin Purcell.

“So-called cannabis farmers are often vulnerable people who have been exploited and made to live and work in horrendous conditions.

“A lot of work is ongoing with our partners to protect those who are vulnerable from being exploited and robust action is taken against those who take advantage and are involved in serious and organised crime.

“I would say we don’t experience the same level of cannabis production as other parts of the country might however that doesn’t mean we’re complacent and it is an area we continue to pursue.” He added: “Drugs and drugs supply does bring associated crime and disorder, including violence and as already mentioned exploitation of vulnerable people.

“This is why we’re absolutely committed to relentlessly pursue those involved in serious and organised crime.”

Hostile environment

Protect is a joint project with other agencies such as councils and government departments, which was set up to prevent organised crime.

Its four aims are to prosecute those involved in such crime, prevent people getting involved in the first place, protect against its effects, and reduce its impact where it occurs.

Police cannabis expert Mike Hall has been seizing plants across the wider region for nearly nine years.

Acting on tips-off from the public, Mr Hall and his team in West Midlands Police smash around three cannabis farms a day, leaving plants to rot and die, recycling metal equipment and donating gardening equipment used in production of the drug to the community.

While the debate going on nationally surrounding cannabis questions whether its illegal status makes it harder to tackle the drug’s effect on society than if it were legal, Mr Hall’s efforts are simply focused on cracking down on drug farmers.

Latest Home Office figures show the number of cannabis plant seizures is rising across the region, but Mr Hall says there has been a “steadying off” in the number of raids he and his team carry out, something he believes is down to the work of his team.

“I think part of that is down to how successful we have been,” he says. “People do not want cannabis farms in their street so we get a lot of community intelligence from people who want us to take action and I think that is making it a hostile environment for the criminals to operate in.

“They might move on to other places and other police forces have to deal with them but in our region we have a good effect on this type of crime.

How to spot a cannabis factory:

• A strong, pungent smell coming from the building.

• Electrical wiring that has been tampered with.

• Powerful lights left on all of the time.

• Windows blacked out.

• A sudden increase in electricity bills.

• Large quantities of rubbish - bin bags full of vegetable matter.

“We see spikes up and down, sometimes there is a seasonal increase in the number of cannabis farms that we see. Sometimes it pitches up, sometimes it pitches down.

“If you take out the operation of an organised crime gang they need time to re-organise, which is a reason behind the spikes. But we’re seeing some good effects from our work and it’s a good way to target organised crime as it targets their pocket – the place where it hurts. Organised crime gangs are the biggest cultivators of cannabis. We try and keep up the momentum so they do not have time to re-organise to that level.”

Community

He continued: “Our intelligence is mostly coming in from the public. The public understand now that one report doesn’t quite do it and we need to get more information in order to convince a magistrate to give us a warrant.

“So we do have a continuation of information coming in with people reporting the movements of cannabis farms and that helps us to build up a picture and go out and take positive action in the community.

“There is a lot of great pro-active work done by neighbourhood teams across the West Midlands because, after all, this is a neighbourhood issue. People do not want these farms in their community or neighbourhood. Our neighbourhood teams work with the public to make sure they’re on top of this.

“We dispose of the plants by letting them go to rot,” he added. “Once they have gone to rot we put them into compost to get rid of them.

“We do not burn anything anymore, we have tried to move towards more environmentally friendly areas. The plants will go to compost, the equipment we take away will be recycled for the metal and any usable gardening equipment, which is just normal gardening equipment that has been diverted for criminal use, we’ll keep that in a pile and members of the public from different groups and organisations get in touch with us. Where we can find stuff and we’ve got it we will let people have it, but it’s only limited by what we find.”

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Mr Hall’s team donates any gardening equipment it seizes from the criminals. This means schools, community groups, and old people’s homes benefit as more and more cannabis farms are shut down.

Mr Hall said: “The process of growing cannabis illegally indoors involves gardening equipment. So what we tend to do with that to prevent further offences, once we have dealt with the evidential side of it, is with anything salvageable that can be used by the community we move on and give it to whoever can benefit the widest from it. Schools are ideal because they obviously get a wide benefit, but community groups, old people’s homes, all places like that we donate to.

“We’re taking away criminals’ initial investment and destroying their future profit. They can only absorb so much of that fund loss.”

To anyone wanting to report a cannabis farm, Mr Hall said simply: “Please get in touch, it’s what we’re here for.”

To report a cannabis factory call officers on 101.

Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111 or at crimestoppers-uk.org