Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner has warned that vacant town centre premises are proving very ‘lucrative’ opportunities for cannabis cultivation, after recent discoveries in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.
Close to 600 cannabis plants were located during the execution of a warrant at the old Woolworths store building on Dimond Street, Pembroke Dock on October 3; whilst the following month on November 4, Dyfed-Powys Police officers executed a further search warrant at a property on the same street, where a large-scale cannabis cultivation set up was located at an address, with more than 500 plants located.
Arrests were made in relation to both investigations.
At another raid last month on Pembroke’s Main Street, Police officers entered the former Lloyds Pharmacy premises, on October 18 and found 575 cannabis plants in advanced stages of growth across three rooms.
The estimated yield of the plants could have produced between 15 and 45 kilograms of cannabis, valued at £170,000 to £500,000 on the street.
Inside the building, officers also discovered a makeshift living area with a bed and shower, indicating that the suspect, twenty-seven-year-old Albanian Amarildo Daja, had been residing there.
Daja admitted to officers that he had been smuggled into the UK by a criminal gang to pay off a debt.
Initially he worked in London but agreed to tend the cannabis farm in Pembrokeshire three months prior to his arrest.
At a court hearing this month, Judge Geraint Walters noted that the case highlighted the need to target criminal organisations and ‘ringleaders’ behind such operations.
Daja was sentenced to 12 months in prison, with the possibility of deportation upon release, subject to a Home Office decision.
At a property in Carmarthen town, 930 cannabis plants, with a potential street value of over £870,000 were seized by police, after local officers executed a warrant at a property on King Street, on October 23.
During the warrant, a large hydroponic set up was located; and a thirty-year-old man has been charged with production of controlled drug, class B cannabis, who subsequently appeared at Llanelli Magistrates Court to plead guilty.
On the evening of Wednesday, November 6, Dyfed-Powys Police raided the former Co-operative store on Sycamore Street in Newcastle Emlyn, where officers discovered approximately 435 cannabis plants and growing equipment.
Police and Crime Commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn said that large vacant premises in town centres were proving to present a "very lucrative opportunity” for a cannabis cultivation to be produced in that location, “sort of hidden in plain sight”.
On the Newcastle Emlyn raid, he remarked: “The fact it was very close to the police station just highlights how these organised crime groups are quite brazen.”
Detective Sergeant Richard Saunders said: “We are committed to making our force area hostile to organised groups who produce and deal illegal drugs, and our work here in Carmarthen has seen a significant amount of cannabis taken out of the supply chain.
“Dyfed Powys Police will continue to target those who supply drugs in our community and the related incidents that it brings.”