by Hundreds of Scots who crossed the English Channel on small boats helped their drug gangs get a hold of the British cannabis market.
They were recruited as workers on illegal cannabis “farms” set up in rented houses or disused industrial buildings to produce crops worth up to £2 million an hour which can be grown and harvested within 12 a week.
The industrial scale of cannabis production has been revealed by an undercover investigation into a secret channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram. More than 700 Scots use it to share information about their cannabis operations.
Discussions between group members focus on the best chemicals for plant growth, the most efficient way to harvest cannabis plants, the economics of securing properties for drug production and why crossbows are better than guns for protect crops from rival gangs.
Members of the group recount robberies in which the fingers of cannabis “farm” workers were cut off and landlords demanded a five-figure share of the profits.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the ruthless professionalism the Scots have brought to cannabis farming has enabled them to displace the Vietnamese as Britain’s main domestic suppliers of the drug.
Scottish gangs that used to specialize in cocaine switched to cannabis because it was “very, very low risk”.
It’s a good profit because of the high demand – Britons consume 240 tonnes of the drug, worth £2.4 billion, a year – and there’s no need for dangerous cross-border transport because it’s grown at home, according to the NCA.
The surge in Albanians crossing the English Channel in 2022, when 12,685 arrived in the UK in small boats, provided a ready supply of illegal workers, trained in the hydroponic technology needed to grow the plants in the dark rooms of houses where all the windows are boarded up. . sealed.
As a result there has been an increased police focus on the domestic production of cannabis. 29 Scots were sentenced in July alone for illegally producing the drug. A further 24 Scots appeared before the courts in August. That is almost one day.
Some 101 illegal Albanian migrants were sentenced to more than 300 years in prison in three months at the end of last year. Three quarters of them were convicted of offenses related to cannabis production across England and Wales on indoor farms.
Many of the illegal migrants were recruited by the gangs after a government crackdown on black economy work made it difficult for them to find jobs.
Fines for bosses who hire illegal migrants have been tripled to up to £60,000 per worker to make the practice so economically damaging it could “put them out of business”.
The police are concerned that Telegram has become a platform for criminals. It has 900 million users but only about 100 employees. Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of Telegram, was detained in France this summer for his alleged failure to fight the use of the service for crime, including the dissemination of child sexual abuse material.
The Albanian channel goes by the name Kusho, which means “cousin” and is the nickname used by Albanians to address each other.
It currently has 703 members who share information on how to produce the maximum amount of cannabis from seed to full grown plant.
Posts on the channel were collected by a Scottish reporter who told the group. “Everyone needs to know how to grow ‘roses’,” said one of the channel’s organizers.
Another member listed the six most effective key chemicals for fast, healthy growth.
One video showed the best way to trim the dead leaves from a cannabis plant, while one member, using the nickname Bushi06, offered cannabis seedlings for £5 and claimed to have sold 700 so far.
In talks about how to protect the “farms”, one Scotsman explained that it was better to spend £337 on a high-powered crossbow than a gun, as it would carry a lesser sentence if caught.
Some people seemed less concerned about police finding out about their illegal operations than being attacked and robbed by rival gangs.
“Most cannabis house robberies are happening in Leicester. They cut off the fingers of a Scottish worker,” said one member of the group.
“The police are not the big problem,” said a London-based Scot using the pseudonym Deni. “The main problem is robbers who are now using drones to identify the houses. They find the heat from the plants through the roofs of the houses.”
Others complained that landlords were overcharging them for the use of their property or demanding a cut of the profits.
“Landlords in London are charging £4,000 a month for a house. It’s not worth it at all,” said one.
Another said: “So far I’ve invested £31,000 in a house including 12K for sealing it, and 12K for the lights. I don’t know if I will get my money back. The agency that rented the house to me wants £9,000 when the product is ready to move.”
Last summer, the police launched Operation Mille to target cannabis farms in the UK. Among those jailed was Nard Nidri, 34, who entered the UK illegally in 2022 and lived in Birmingham, then moved to Swansea, where he worked at a car wash, before being recruited for a farm cannabis.
He was one of four “gardeners” jailed for a total of six years in August after police arrested them at a property in Castell Nedd, south Wales. Two rooms and the attic were adapted and insulated to grow plants at a street value of £85,000.
Sentencing them, Judge Geraint Walters said cannabis farms run by Albanian criminal gangs had reached “epidemic levels” and, in his judgement, “were an industry”.
He suggested that authorities should look at the rental housing sector, noting that while cannabis “farmers” often appeared in court, landlords and others rarely received money from the rent of the properties that were being used for growing operations.
