Footage of baby playing with THOUSANDS OF POUNDS helps police smash £820k cannabis ring run by gang who used the child to help them rent homes to grow drugs in
- The Vietnamese drugs ring posed as couples with babies in order to rent homes
- Clip of a baby handling cash was linked to the couple’s £250,000 stash of notes
- Sixteen of the gang members were jailed this week at Preston Crown Court
This footage of a baby playing with a wad of cash helped bring down a gang of Vietnamese drug dealers.
Members of the £820,000 drugs ring posed as couples with babies to help them rent dozens of properties before turning them into cannabis farms, police said.
Footage of one of the babies fidgeting with a stack of £20 notes formed part of the evidence, as police uncovered £250,000 in cash among the gang’s ill-gotten possessions.
Sixteen gang members were jailed this week after they grew cannabis in 21 properties across the North West including in Liverpool, Preston and Blackpool.
The gang used false identities and fraudulent documents to rent dozens of properties before turning them into cannabis farms.
‘Gardeners’ would then be employed to visit the houses and tend the crops, Lancashire Police said.
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Police said: ‘They rented the properties and made themselves attractive to potential landlords by posing as a couple with a baby on the way or with a newborn child.
‘They tried to avoid leaving a trail of evidence by using false names and false documentation and always paid deposits in cash.’
Ringleader Jack Nguyen was jailed for seven years and four months while 15 others also received prison sentences at Preston Crown Court.
This footage of a baby playing with a wad of cash helped bring down a gang of Vietnamese drug dealers in the North West of England who had stockpiled £250,000 in banknotes
DS Stu Peall of Lancashire Police said: ‘I welcome these sentences which reflect the serious nature of the offending.
‘This was a sophisticated organised criminal group making huge amounts of money from their operation which stretched across the north west of England.
‘Many defendants claimed to be trafficked and some claiming to be children, all of these defences were proved to be lies and simply just a tactic used to avoid detection.
‘[Cannabis] can have lasting physical and mental health effects on users as well as having a negative effect on our communities and fuelling other crime and we are determined to tackle that.
‘We need the public to continue to work with us to help us tackle drug crime by informing us of any suspicious activity.’
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