A cannabis farm the size of a football pitch has been uncovered by police who have today revealed it has an estimated street value of more than £1 MILLION.
The drugs factory was uncovered by officers on the Brunswick Industrial Estate in Newcastle on Thursday where nearly 1,500 plants were being grown and cultivated over two floors.
Police had been tipped off to the huge farm by electricity contractors who had responded to an outage on the industrial estate.
Officers were immediately deployed to investigate and promptly found a huge industrial unit had been converted in to a make-shift drugs operation.
Detective Superintendent John Bensley, of Northumbria Police, has overseen the dismantling of the farm and said officers will continue to strike at the heart of organised crime.
He said: “This is not some small scale farm consisting of a few plants in an unoccupied bedroom, it has all the marking of serious and organised crime.
“This is a sophisticated drugs operation that lines the pockets of organised criminals to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“Their pockets are lighter today than they were tomorrow and that is because the community are on our side and they continue to be our eyes and ears.
“Over night we have struck at the heart of a suspected £1 million drugs operation that relies on the exploitation of vulnerable people across our region.
“Under the banner of Operation Sentinel we will continue to work with our partners to proactively target organised crime operations and dismantle them piece by piece.”
Operational Sentinel is Northumbria Police’s joint initiative for tackling serious and organised crime in partnership with Durham Constabulary, Cleveland Police and the North East Regional Special Operations Unit (NERSOU).
Enquiries to identify those responsible for the huge farm are ongoing and anyone who may be able to assist police is asked to get in touch.
You can report information online at the Northumbria Police website or by calling 101, quoting log 415 11/03/21.
Content courtesy of Northumbria Police.
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