London homeowner Charles Reeves returned from working abroad to find his family home had been transformed into a cannabis farm. Criminals had posed as tenants, arranged by an estate agent, and dumped 10 tonnes of soil in the house to grow cannabis. Rental scams linked to cannabis farms are said to be rising in the UK, with criminals exploiting the lengthy eviction process to complete illegal grow operations. During this time, they can complete multiple grows and make a significant profit before disappearing without a trace.
Metropolitan Police figures show that more than 1,000 cannabis farms have been discovered in London in the past few years, with a total of 1,056 found between the 2018-19 and 2022-23 financial years. Experts believe these figures represent only a tiny proportion of the number of cannabis farms currently in operation.
“The issue that London has is obviously it is one of the main distribution hubs for controlled drugs throughout the United Kingdom,” said Allen Morgan, one of the UK’s leading expert witnesses from criminal drugs trials and a former police officer who now runs a drug consultancy service. “The cannabis trade is so lucrative, what you get is when you convert a rented property, you effectively obtain five, six, maybe seven separate growing areas where you can produce cannabis plants, obviously discreetly and without any sort of evidential link to you.”
The cannabis trade has allegedly become an operation run by international crime syndicates and the lack of regulation in the rental property sector has made it easier for fraudsters to operate. Estate agents are not required to have qualifications despite handling significant assets, leaving homeowners vulnerable to scams and other criminal activities
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