Tunstall police raids feature in BBC show as three cannabis farms busted
Raids on four Stoke-on-Trent properties were televised this morning in BBC One's SAS: Catching the Criminals. Billy Billingham, who spent 20 years in the SAS, followed Staffordshire Police as they discovered three cannabis grows and arrested two men on a quiet Tunstall street.
Ahead of the searches, codenamed 'Operation Levidrome', Billy said: “Simultaneous raids, very similar to the military way of life. We’re going to hit them hard and take these drugs off our streets.”
Billy attended an early morning briefing at Hanley Police Station where officers were told they would be executing four drugs warrants in Tunstall that day. The officer told them: “The number of cannabis grows we’ve had in Stoke north is going through the roof, and we’ve identified four addresses that have either been used for cannabis grows or to house those responsible.”
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The police swept through the streets and back alleys of Tunstall silently, trailed by Billy, who explained they were moving on foot and quietly in case the drug gang had spotters in the area. The target addresses were two neighbouring terraced properties.
An officer knocks on the back door and shouts: “Police, open the door.” When no answer is received, he smashes through the glass door with his big red key, at the same time as the door to the other property is battered through by another officer.
Police pour into the property, shouting to signal that they are police and not a rival gang, and immediately finding ventilation tubes used in the grows. Billy follows behind as police locate their first suspect upstairs.
“Why didn’t you answer the door?” Billy asks. “I didn’t hear,” the suspect tells him, adding: “I can’t open the door, I don’t have keys.”
A shout goes up and Billy flies down the stairs towards the basement, where officers have found the grow. Rows of young cannabis plants lie under strong lights on the basement floor.
Off-camera, the suspect suggests that there may be other people in the house, then quickly denies it. The police cannot yet locate anyone else in the property, but suspect the grow is the work of a gang.
Billy, keen again to flex his SAS experience, says he recognises the man’s accent from his time serving in the Balkans. He then speaks to him in Serbo-Croatian to ask if the man can speak the language.
The man says he is Albanian and Billy reverts to English. Upstairs, Billy is shown a huge illegal grow in a bedroom full of mature cannabis plants. “There’s probably about 60 or 70 plants up here, all the power sources are there,” says Billy, pointing to a huge bank of sockets. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t go through health and safety on that one.
“The smell from the plants is overpowering. The amount of power being used for the fans and the lights is gigantic, and that’s what gave the gang working here away.”
An officer explains to Billy that the National Grid found that a huge strain was being put on the network in the residential area of Tunstall. While Billy was following the team going into one terraced house, across the street police ran into ‘resistance’ at another property they were raiding at the same time.
A police officer spotted an individual inside trying to flee before police entered. He was detained attempting to escape out the back of the house, with an officer saying the man “gave quite a good fight in his attempt to get away.”
Entering the house, Billy says: “It’s like being in a Christmas tree plantation, but you’re just surrounded by weed. There must be over 100 plants here.”
An officer shows Billy burn marks on a skirting board in one of the grow rooms. “Something has been on fire there,” the officer tells him. “This is a terraced house, you’ve potentially got families on either side, so if there was a fire there’s a huge amount of risk.”
Another officer tells Billy the grows could have made £10,000 per week. Billy adds: “Operation Levidrome here in Staffordshire was a total success, with three cannabis grows taken down, two people in custody. A great operation, and there’s more to follow.”
SAS: Catching the Criminals is available on BBC iPlayer now.