Sky News claims organised criminal gangs are increasingly using rented houses and flats to operate illegal cannabis farms – and police say it is putting the lives of innocent neighbours at risk.
The gangs often use crude methods to bypass electricity meters to avoid paying for the high levels of energy the farms require, creating an increased fire risk.
Rival gangs also carry out raids on each other’s farms – a practice known as ‘taxing’ – and “exercise “significant violence” to anyone who gets in their way.
The news service says Greater Manchester Police detected 402 cannabis farms between May 2024 and April 2025.
In a raid on one such farm – to which Sky News was given access – officers stormed a semi-detached house in a quiet suburban street in Wythenshawe. They found a room full of plants and another ‘drying room’ with the drug packaged up and ready to be distributed. The street value was estimated in the tens of thousands of pounds.
Sky says police intelligence shows gangs employing low-level operatives, known as gardeners, to manage and protect farms. They will often plead guilty to drug offences and accept the punishment to keep police off the trail of those controlling the operation.
“Detective Inspector Paul Crompton of Greater Manchester Police is quoted as saying: “It infuriates me when we take action against these farms and people say ‘It’s only cannabis’. What we see with cannabis farms is that rival organised crime groups will actively target those and break in and take the products by force. You’ve got a risk of potentially people being kidnapped or killed without us knowing anything about them.
“Make no bones about it, there’s massive amounts of money to make and they would rather just go and take that cannabis and sell it for themselves. They’ll do significant, violence against anybody that gets in the way, whether that’s the gardener, the police or residents who might get in the way.”
Police are quoted as saying landlords need to be aware of the risks and say even the chief executive of what Sky calls “the British Landlords Association” has fallen victim.
One of Sajjar Ahmad’s properties was badly damaged by those using it for an illegal cannabis farm. “I can only explain it as horrific,” he says.
“Our members, when they’ve experienced the problem with the cannabis farm, they are shocked. They didn’t know it could happen. They are not aware of the telltale signs. They have the same regrets as what I experienced – you need to carry out regular inspections and, if somebody is offering you a larger rent, then you should question that.”
