6:02am Monday 11th February 2008
By Steve Wright
Last week the 65th cannabis factory in Bradford was uncovered during a police raid at a property in Horton Grange Road, Lidget Green.
About 450 plants, with an estimated street value of £120,000, were seized.
Chief Superintendent Allan Doherty, head of the Crackdown in Bradford, A Community Against Drugs initiative, said the cannabis factories were being set up by sophisticated criminal gangs.
He said: "This type of crime is linked to other crimes. We are aware of links to tax evasion, money laundering and, maybe, people trafficking. We are investigating those links.
"We feel the money made from cannabis is channelled into other crimes."
A Home Office adviser, Dr Les King, has told the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is considering reclassifying cannabis back to class B status, that police seizures of powerful skunk have rocketed. Between 70 and 80 per cent of cannabis now seized is skunk, compared to 15 per cent six years ago.
Recovery of the more traditional, and much less potent, cannabis resin has slumped from between 60 and 70 per cent of the market to 20 per cent.
Dr King said: "Skunk is now clearly the dominant product. It coincides with the rise of these large organised criminal concerns run by the Vietnamese."
Detective Inspector Neil Benstead, head of Bradford District Drugs Team, said there was clear evidence organised groups of criminals were producing skunk cannabis across the UK.
He said Bradford had seen the discovery of more large-scale, sophisticated cannabis factories than any other city in Yorkshire and Humberside.
He said: "The majority of people convicted recently have been Vietnamese. Some of those have been illegal immigrants. They have been served with deportation papers.
"We have got intelligence that some of the people involved are illegal immigrants and are paying many thousands of pounds to come to the UK. Once here, they have no legal way of earning income. If they want to pay the money back they have got to do illegal things.
"We have arrested and convicted people who haven't just been the growers. There is ongoing work in Bradford and West Yorkshire to gather the evidence with a view to prosecuting the people further up the criminal chain. Hopefully, every arrest we make will give us another piece of the jigsaw to arrest and prosecute the organisers and those making the huge financial profits from the growing."
Det Insp Benstead said discoveries of cannabis factories had concentrated around Great Horton and Little Horton but were now moving out into the suburbs.
He added: "I don't know why Bradford has the highest number of cannabis factories uncovered. I would hope that we have been more proactive than some other areas.
"We have a dedicated team of drugs officers and are more aware in Bradford of what to look for."
Police regularly liaise with immigration officers. A spokesman for the Border and Immigration Agency said it had set out new measures to increase enforcement and establish new partnership arrangements with police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency to tackle organised immigration crime.
She said: "We're supporting SOCA in targeting and prosecuting those involved in this crime.
"Through stronger border controls the new agency will be tougher, smarter and more flexible in its reaction to threats such as organised immigration crime."
Last week two Vietnamese illegal immigrants were jailed at Bradford Crown Court after they were arrested at houses which had been turned into cannabis factories.
Tuan Tran was jailed for 15 months after police found him tending more than 170 cannabis plants at a house in Little Lane, Girlington, Bradford.
The plants, with a street value in excess of £30,000, were discovered in an attic bedroom, which was kitted out with high-voltage lighting and an electric fan. Bags of compost and liquid plant food were found throughout the house and three more rooms were being prepared for cannabis production.
Tran, 30, had arrived in the UK only a month before his arrest and had been living at the house for just five days. His passport had been taken off him by the agent who had brought him to Britain and he could not get legitimate work because he had no identification papers.
His barrister, Giles Bridge, told the court: "It appears that those who arranged his introduction into the UK passed him down the chain to others, who put forward the work in Bradford."
Doung Tran, 20, sentenced to 12 months in a young-offender institution, was forensically linked to two cannabis factories found at houses in Granville Road, Frizinghall, and Paley Road, East Bowling.
Tran had been arrested only weeks after he had been released from an 18-month sentence he had received for a similar offence.
Recorder Peter Babb recommended that he should be deported when he completes his service.
Another man facing jail when he is sentenced at Bradford this week is 47-year-old Ha Dang.
He admitted - through an interpreter - a charge of producing cannabis after he was found sleeping at a house in Selbourne Villas, Clayton, which had been converted to cultivate cannabis. Plants with an estimated street value of £53,000 were seized.
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