Cannabis factories are springing up in shared houses as drugs gangs change tactics to outwit the police.
The crooks are splitting their farms across several smaller properties to minimise their losses when police strike.
The clear trend is reported by police, who are warning landlords to regularly check their properties to make sure drug dealers have not moved in.
Points to watch include:
• Properties rented for long periods by tenants from the Far East, who often pay in cash. Sometimes the rental is ‘fronted’ by someone from the UK
• The strong smell of cannabis coming from the property
• Condensation on the windows and black out curtains drawn during the day
In the past few days, several Vietnamese drugs farmers have been arrested at buy to let drugs farms or jailed for supplying cannabis.
Illegal immigrant Son Ngoc, 21, was jailed for two years eight months at Livingstone Sheriff Court after admitting for growing 300 cannabis plants in a rented home in Livingston, Scotland.
Police arrested Ngoc after the landlord reported suspicious activity at the property.
The court heard the plants would have produced around 28 -30 pounds of cannabis valued at up to £75,000 to dealers.
Meanwhile, two Vietnamese teenagers looking after cannabis plants worth an estimated £150,000 in a four-bedroom detached buy to let home in Barnalby le Beck, North East Lincolnshire, were arrested in a police raid.
In another case, Tuyen Vu, 38, and Minh Luong, 21, were jailed for growing cannabis at a rented home in Harrow, North London.
Police raided the property and discovered cannabis plants growing in every room.
Vu was jailed for 24 months and Luong received 20 months at Harrow Crown Court.
The trend for several small cannabis farms rather than growing a crop in one location stops police from wiping out a criminal drugs gang in a single raid, while the ‘farmers’ rarely know who the identities or locations of gang leaders as they operate in independent cells.
