Police crack down on drug lords (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Police crack down on drug lords

6:01am Monday 11th February 2008

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Police today pledged to bring to book the Mr Bigs' making fortunes from the production of powerful skunk' cannabis in Bradford.

Drugs barons, who often use illegal immigrants from the Far East to cultivate the cannabis farms, are known to have links to people trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion.

Recent arrests and court cases have shown an increasing number of Vietnamese immigrants being used as "gardeners" to tend the growing cannabis plants in rented houses.

Two Vietnamese nationals were jailed in separate cases at Bradford Crown Court last week after they were found at houses in the city which had been converted into cannabis factories. Drugs squad officers are now hot on the tail of the shadowy professional criminals organising the cannabis production, but need the public to help bring them to justice.

Chief Superintendent Allan Doherty, Divisional Commander for Bradford North and Keighley Police, said people of all ethnic origins were involved in the production of skunk cannabis.

But he said: "We are interested in people further up the chain. We have information about some of these people. As well as preventing the production of a controlled drug, we aim to seize assets and link to other cannabis factories to prove a wider conspiracy.

"We need more information from the public. If we just catch the gardeners' from a cannabis factory we won't penetrate very deeply into the organisation.

"But if we can get information beforehand from the public and build up intelligence, when we do strike we can go for people higher up the organisation and start to penetrate the Mr Bigs' who are involved."

• War on the drug lords

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