16/01/2008 00:00:00
Wales: Drug Farm on Every Street?
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Time was when you would pop next door to borrow a cup of sugar from your
neighbour - but these days you could find something a little stronger.
Crime reporter JASON EVANS looks at the growth of cannabis farms in
residential streets.
Is there a drug factory on your street? You might dismiss the idea as
preposterous.
But more and more people are getting a nasty surprise when police raid a
house in their community and uncover large-scale cannabis production
behind unassuming front doors.
In just the last couple of months police have swooped on houses in
communities from Llandysul to Fforestfach Cross and Mount Pleasant,
Swansea, Alltwen and Baglan.
Thousands of cannabis plants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds have
been seized, and production on a near-industrial scale uncovered.
Detective Superintendent Dale Ponting, head of serious organised crime
for South Wales, said: "South Wales Police raided more than 50 cannabis
factories in the force area last year.
"We never lose sight of the effects drugs have on our communities and we
are using all means at our disposal to halt the cultivation, supply and
sale of cannabis and make our communities safer.
"This is an emerging issue nationally.
"As a force, we are looking at all opportunities to tackle this type of
criminality, which research shows can lead to the use of harder drugs in
our communities.
"Intelligence gathering and information from the public has led to many
raids across South Wales, where sophisticated cannabis factories have
been uncovered and significant hauls of cannabis have been seized."
Though production takes place in a domestic setting, it is far from
amateurish.
Often an entire house is given over to cultivating the plants, with
polythene covering walls, floors, windows and doors, and powerful
reflector lamps providing light and heat.
Hundreds of plants can be grown in a typical terraced house and usually
the growers have hacked into the electricity supply to run the system
for free.
But who is behind these cannabis farms? A case at Swansea Crown Court
gives a powerful insight into the criminal gangs behind the production -
people who not only deal in drugs but in people smuggling too.
In sentencing two illegal immigrants to 16 months behind bars for
tending a cannabis farm in a house in Brynhyfryd, Swansea, Judge Keith
Thomas said: "The establishment of cannabis factories and cannabis farms
by criminal elements from Asia is a worrying and expanding development
throughout South and West Wales."
But he said he was in no doubt as to the role of the two men in the
criminal enterprise.
Addressing the men, he said: "Those who appear before the courts like
you are almost invariably illegal immigrants who are wholly reliant on
criminal gangs - who facilitate their illegal entry into the country -
for their accommodation, support and sustenance.
"This was a sophisticated criminal enterprise, though I accept that each
of you was an unsophisticated pawn in the hands of an organised criminal
gang.
"All those involved in such enterprises, from the top to the bottom,
must be deterred from involvement by the imposition of custodial sentences."
Barrister John Hipkin, for one of the accused, Hung Hoang, said his
client had spent a year making his way to Britain and had been smuggled
into the country in the back of a lorry.
"He, as many in his position do, had a debt outstanding of some £10,000
to those involved in this type of trafficking," he said.
Kevin Riordan, for co-defendant Dong Ding Phan, said his client was in a
similar position, having paid money to people-smuggling gangs, known as
snakeheads, to get him into the country.
"He, too, had paid the snakeheads money by selling land to come here
over a seven-month journey from Vietnam," he said.
The rewards for the gangs involved in the trade can be enormous - it is
reckoned a gang can make around £30,000 in three months from a farm of
200 plants.
Mr Ponting issued an appeal to residents to help crack down on the
cannabis farms. "I would urge everyone in our communities to be vigilant
as to any suspicious activity and to report these matters."
The Brits are famously a nation of gardeners, but it seems the roots of
some plants can reach halfway around the world.
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/
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Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=13165
Author:
South Wales Evening Post via UKCIA
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