Cannabis Factory Behind Closed Doors
The four bed-roomed detached house on the outskirts of Coventry looked like any typical family home, but growing behind the walls were hundreds of cannabis plants!
This house was among over 300 ‘cannabis factories’ found within the area last year which lead to the arrest of 17 Vietnamese nationals.
Cannabis factories can be placed within any home, in any street. After obtaining a lease and paying rent well in advance, the properties are laid back to the bare walls and special lighting is installed to help the growth of the plants.
Neighbours have no idea what is going on in the house even though the curtains are permanently closed. The cannabis farmers live among the plants sleeping on a mattress on the floor with a TV for entertainment.
Gangs, mainly from south-east Asia, are hand picking innocuous houses to grow the illegal plants in. They seem respective people who are well dressed when they visit the estate agents to find the properties.
Once the plants have been harvested tenants then disappear leaving the landlord to face unpaid electricity bills of thousands of pounds, together with the added problem of the house being in such a bad state of disrepair.
Cannabis Growers
Many of these ‘farmers’ are believed to be young people from Vietnam who are in the UK illegally and have been enticed by gangsters with a promise of big wages and a rich life.
Dorothy Wong, founder of Birmingham's Vietnamese Development Centre, said that when these young people arrive in the UK, they trust the "friendly faces" who may then lead them astray.
"Normally when you come to UK obviously you're scared, you can't understand what people are saying, it's frightening so you will tend to trust people who speak your language," she said.
"They will have friendly faces to get you into system; you become their prisoner in a sense.
"You wouldn't dare go to police. They will remind you that you're here illegally in the first place."
Most of these desperate people are told they are growing tomato plants and even though some may eventually realise what they actually are, by then it’s too late and they have no choice but to stay and nurture the plants.
Landlords and Energy Companies
The National Landlords Association are now trying to get the message across for landlords to check their homes on a regular basis in the hope that this problem can be avoided, or at least stopped at an early stage.
Electricity power is sometimes stolen from houses nearby by the direct rewiring from the street’s mains which bypasses the meter. Energy companies are losing thousands of pounds of electricity and supplier EON said it was working with police to report anything unusual it notices in its power supply.
Police have only been able to apprehend the cannabis growers at this stage, while the gang-masters who are in charge of the whole operation seem to be always one step ahead.
What happened to the days when everybody knew their neighbours and if curtains were closed for more than a day or two, people would check all was okay?
