A total of £5.3 million worth of cannabis has been seized across Yorkshire amid county-wide raids.
According to West Yorkshire Police, officers from the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit (YH ROCU) worked alongside West, South, North and Humberside Police to seized the cannabis by executing 138 separate warrants.
A total of 127 people were arrested as part of the operation targeted at organised crime groups in Yorkshire. This operation took place throughout June with police locating and searching 138 cannabis grows.
Now, more than 19,500 plants were seized alongside 26 kilograms of cropped cannabis. Cash, weapons and other drugs were also confiscated as part of the nationally-coordinated Operation Mille.
Detective Superintendent Fiona Gaffney, deputy head of the YH ROCU, led the response in Yorkshire and the Humber and said: “We targeted these criminal networks who were involved in drug dealing, immigration crime and money laundering as part of a coordinated approach to disrupting their activities and bringing them to justice.
“Working with police in all four Yorkshire and Humber forces, as well as our partner agencies, we were able to tackle the large-scale cultivation of cannabis which is a key source of illicit income for organised gangs.
“There’s a clear link between serious crime and those involved in cannabis cultivation. The drugs trade fuels gang violence as groups compete for territory. They hunt out the opposition and cause misery in our communities.”
The seized plants and cannabis were worth an estimated £5,351,090. According to the police, 90 mobile phones, two laptops and other devices such as CCTV systems, USBs and hard drives were also seized alongside large quantities of cash.
Steve Jupp, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Serious and Organised Crime, said:
“We know that organised networks involved in cannabis production are also directly linked to an array of other serious criminality such as class A drug importation, modern slavery and wider violence and exploitation.”
