Cannabis worth £84m seized in West Midlands
Police shut down more than 250 large factories last year.
Last updated 25th Jan 2022
Cannabis worth a total of around 84 million pounds was seized in the West Midlands last year.
Police shut down more than 250 large factories growing the drug - the largest of which had over 6 thousand plants.
Officers say they often find people have been trafficked here illegally to tend the crop and are forced to live in squalid conditions in the drugs dens, while children or vulnerable people are used to deal drugs or move them across the country.
They're vowing to continue to clamp down on criminal gangs who run the sites.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dale is from our Serious Organised Crime & Exploitation team. He said: “We’re not talking about some recreational drug use here…this is top-level organised criminality, linked to exploitation and violence.
“The cannabis factories can be in industrial units or disused factories but often we find them in residential streets surrounded by family homes or even near schools.
“They are a magnet for anti-social behaviour and crime.
“Increasingly people are getting fed up with being blighted by these drug factories and are calling us with information. That’s helping us uncover more and more illegal premises and damaging the revenue making streams for crime gangs.”