FLASH
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A cannabis farm worth more than €1m linked to Albanian gangs has been raided by police. The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (NëROCU) investigation, codenamed Operation Spark, was set up to investigate a plot by a gang posing as legitimate workers, when in reality they were tapping into the national grid to supply electricity to commercial-scale cannabis farms.
The 10-man gang, who worked for a Companies House registered business called Elev8 Civils and Utilities Ltd, found ways to access the electrical cables. The gang, led by Ross McGinn and Andrew Roberts, were involved in at least 54 digs around the U., with their first project taking place at The Dell in West Derby.
The gang operated in plain sight, wearing high-visibility clothing and using signs to block roads, making it look like they were carrying out regular work in broad daylight. The illegally generated electricity was diverted to 100 cannabis farms and helped fuel the drug trade, creating an estimated £21m of the class B drug.
However, the gang's business was eventually disrupted when North Wales Police officers raided an abandoned shop on Bangor's High Street in January 2023. Officers found a cannabis farm worth £1.2 million.
In the footage above, officers can be seen storming the abandoned shop, finding hundreds of cannabis plants. Two Albanian nationals, who had been trafficked to the UK to work on farms, were found inside.
Due to extensive modifications to the wiring and electrical wiring, the building was deemed unsafe, preventing officers from completing their search. In the months that followed, additional warrants were carried out at other vacant properties on Bangor High Street, leading to the recovery of further cannabis plants worth £800.00.
A utility company confirmed that electricity had been removed from the grid outside and CCTV analysis showed men working on the road, along with a lit van bearing the name Elev8. The footage showed that the gang appeared to be engaged in legitimate utility work, but further CCTV analysis, combined with the recovery of messages from a WhatsApp group, allowed detectives to piece together the extent of the work in the UK.
The gang connected electricity to cannabis farms that had been set up in empty houses, pubs and hotels. Two of the gang's mining projects were in Merseyside, but their work took them as far as Dundee and Portsmouth.
Detective Chief Inspector Zoe Russo, from the N'ROCU operations team, said: 'The crime group ran a highly sophisticated and dangerous operation, operating from fake utility vans, which allowed them to work across the country without raising suspicion. In WhatsApp conversations, we discovered conversations where members of the group had taken photographs of electrical damage at the site.'
In total, more than 100 cannabis farms were discovered with a potential street value of more than £21 million.
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