Greater Manchester Police gave residents living in Cheadle Hume a shock after officers with a battering ram tore down a door to gain access to a home following an anonymous tip-off
Police in Manchester charged down a door in a quiet residential culd-de-sac after discovering cannabis plants worth nearly £300,000.
Residents in Cheadle Hulme were stunned to see officers storm down the street armed with a battering ram as cops raided a house which had been hiding a huge criminial enterprise. However, before they could get past, they needed to use a crowbar to remove a separate door which revealed the property’s secrets.
Spread across several rooms, officers from GMP’s Operation Avro discovered cannabis plants with a street value of nearly £300,000. After receiving an anonymous tip about the address online, police had flown their drone over the property on a reconnaissance mission. It revealed unusual heat which can be an indication of cultivation.
The subsequent raid was one of several operations being carried out across Stockport and South Manchester today (February 13). Externally innocuous, the building appeared to have had significant alterations inside to make it usable for the production of cannabis. These included altering the electricity supply and installing screens to insulate the plants
At the time of the raid the plants were at an advanced stage of growth. An officer estimated they could have been ready for sale within two months, Manchester Evening News reported. GMP told the Manchester Evening News they were worth in the region of £300,000. There was also a significant quantity of equipment at the address, with several rooms stuffed full of cannabis plants as well as lamps, fans, and electrical equipment.
No-one was present at the address when police swooped on the property so no arrests were made during this operation. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police told the M.E.N: “Intelligence was submitted to us via the public that a possible cannabis farm was being operated in Cheadle Hulme.
“Using the specialist drone unit, this enabled them to spot something that was suspicious which ultimately led to the warrant and several hundred plants being located at the address.”
The raid was part of a co-ordinated effort across Stockport and South Manchester called Operation Avro. This saw police make 40 arrests, at the time of writing, for a wide variety of offences as well as carrying out community engagement across the area.
