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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Northampton lies at heart of drugs network
Northampton Chronicle and Echo Wednesday 13 Apr 2011 Organised gangs of South East Asian triads are moving their drug production factories out of rented houses in terrace streets and into industrial warehouses, it has emerged, to cash in on bigger, more lucrative harvests. With links now extending into local drug dealing gangs and with English people often fronting the public side of the enterprise, factories are now popping up in more varied and unusual places. Over the past few weeks, factories have been discovered in a former nightclub, a working men's club, a historic thatched cottage and a bargains shop. Dc John Thorogood, from Northamptonshire's organised crime unit, said: "They used to import cannabis into the country, but then they had all the problems of actually getting it in. "Generally that is not the case now and the reason for that is that over the last five years we have seen a massive increase in the amount of home-grown cannabis." The modern cultivation of cannabis, however, is far from 'hippy horticulturists' growing weed for personal use. Gangs now practise the sophisticated, mass production of a drug that is stronger than ever and forms part of an organised web, spanning international people trafficking, slave labour and funding of drug dealers across the country. Last year, police shut down around 150 cannabis factories across Northamptonshire, more than ever before. In 2010, Dc Thorogood valued 22 separate cannabis seizures at a street value of £1.5 million. Already this year he has valued six seizures at more than £1 million. He says that proves factories are getting bigger and the criminals behind them are more knowledgeable. It is also seems to be easier to set cannabis factories up. It now takes only 24 hours and around £6,000 to set up an average cannabis factory. Within weeks plants will then be ready for harvest. Dc Thorogood said: "They will usually start from cuttings rather than seedlings and they will target the female flowering plants because the male plants have smaller flowers. "They will create a false environment for the plants using lights to trick the plants into thinking it is summer. Because you are starting with cuttings they can produce a crop within 12 weeks." As police continue to get better at shutting down factories, criminals are now making use of increasing numbers of large, empty industrial units. It means if they only have time to produce two or three cannabis crops before being rumbled, they can still maximise profits. In some cases just one harvest has produced up to £100,000 of cannabis and factories will often have several crops at different stages of growth. More often than not, police have found South East Asian illegal immigrants, usually from Vietnam, inside cannabis factories. Dc Thorogood says most will have paid up to $10,000 to be smuggled into the UK and are then forced to work as 'gardeners' looking after the plants to pay off their debts. Often living in cramped, squalid conditions, they are effectively slaves, imprisoned in an electrical powder-keg. However, increasingly it is 'home-grown' criminals who are renting the buildings for factories and nearly always it is English drug dealers who are selling it on street corners, reaping the rewards. And this, Dc Thorogood says, is what now concerns UK police. "Our problems lie with Northampton's organised crime groups. It is our home-grown criminals who are profiting and making huge profits which they are then investing in their own drugs supply. "I'm not aware of a huge problem with South East Asian drug dealers on the streets. "They are English." http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/northampton_lies_at_heart_of_drugs_network_1_2590167
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