THESE photographs and video show the interior of a disused textile mill where police discovered more than 5,000 cannabis plants with an anticipated street value of between £2.4m and £2.8m.

Detectives smashed the huge cannabis farm last November and arrested three men after they sought to flee on foot as officers raided the former Carlton Works on Savile Park Road in Halifax. 

Their attempted escape over a glass roof and down a fire escape was caught on footage filmed by an overhead drone.

Albanian nationals Ronaldo Pasha, 24, Elvis Shira, 33, and Bledar Zeqo, 40, were all sentenced to 45 months in prison last week at Bradford Crown Court.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: L-R, Shira, Zeqo, and Posha

The court heard that the trio was responsible for running “an extremely sophisticated set-up designed for the production of cannabis on an industrial scale”.

A series of photographs released by West Yorkshire Police show the sheer size and scale of the illegal factory: 18 grow rooms, with 15 containing cannabis plants in various stages of growth.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

Most contained between 150 and 200 plants, but the two largest rooms held 1,044 and 1,872 plants respectively.

The total number of cannabis plants found on the premises was 5,105, yielding 281kg of the drug.

The photographs also show the large amount of equipment discovered on site including fans, carbon filters, ducting, lighting, complex electrics, and water systems as well as harvesting equipment and vacuum-sealed bags.

Sentencing Pasha, Shira and Zeqo Mr Recorder Paul Reid said the cannabis factory was an “organised commercial illegal grow” with an “enormous projected yield” of over two-and-three-quarter million pounds that justified the financial outlay on the equipment that was found.