Police have seized up to £130m worth of cannabis as part of a nationwide crackdown, described as the “most significant” operation of its kind in UK law enforcement history.
Officers discovered more than 180,000 cannabis plants during the series of co-ordinated raids, aimed at unearthing and disrupting organised crime groups (OCGs) across England and Wales.
Police also discovered 20 firearms, £1m worth of cocaine and £636,000 in cash in relation to the month-long crackdown, which took place across June.
Steve Jupp, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Serious and Organised Crime, said the operation had “successfully disrupted a significant amount of criminal activity”.
“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,” he said.
“The intelligence gathered will also help inform future law enforcement activity across the country.”
Named Operation Mille, the crackdown involved officers co-ordinating a thousand search warrants last month.
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Police say searches and arrests were made in all counties in England and Wales.
Alongside local police forces and Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCU), the operation involved officers from the National Crime Agency and Immigration Enforcement.
The aim of the operation was to disrupt OCGs by taking out a key source of their revenue, while also apprehending many of those involved.
A total of 967 people were arrested for offences including cannabis cultivation, money laundering and weapons offences, of which more than 450 people have since been charged.
Mr Jupp said: “Cannabis-related crime is often thought to be ‘low level’, however there are clear patterns around the exploitation and violence OCGs are using to protect their enterprises.
“We also frequently find that cannabis production is just one aspect of their criminal operations and that they are complicit in wider offending which blights our communities.
“We’ve not only been able to disrupt the criminal operations of a significant number of organised crime groups, but also increased our understanding of their other criminal activities.”