{"id":360216,"date":"2025-08-20T19:43:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360216\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T19:43:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:43:18","slug":"two-men-arrested-after-discovery-of-400k-cannabis-factory-in-co-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360216\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men arrested after discovery of \u00a3400k \u2018cannabis factory\u2019 in Co Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The cannabis had an estimated street value of around \u00a3400k\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f7a8e4af-e7fe-49e6-8373-72b7e5f1880e.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The cannabis had an estimated street value of around \u00a3400k<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The operation spanned two floors\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/535e4cae-c8cf-4b99-839a-06bb22db5161.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The operation spanned two floors<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Police discovered a sum of cash in a second property search\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4a44ac17-9f4f-4c4e-8b8d-979536dd7161.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Police discovered a sum of cash in a second property search<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Two men have been arrested after the discovery of a large cannabis factory in Co Down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Police estimate that the multi-floor factory produced around \u00a3400,000 worth of the drug per harvest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Officers from the PSNI\u2019s Organised Crime Branch and Auto Crime Team found the operation in a warehouse in the Bangor area on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The suspects, both aged 30, were taken in custody for cultivating cannabis where they remain at this time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A second property search in the Newtownabbey area led to the discovery of around \u00a313k in cash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Detective Inspector Kelly from Organized Crime Branch said: \u201cBoth males were detained by police in a vehicle leaving the warehouse outside Bangor this morning. On entering the premises officers located a large cannabis cultivation spanning two floors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">&#8220;The potential street value of the yield from the cultivation would be in the region of \u00a3400,000 per harvest and a considerable amount of time and money has been invested in the enterprise by those involved. This has all the hallmarks of organized crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThis type of criminality is far from victimless and a considerable policing operation is now ongoing to dismantle the facility. Our investigation is at an early stage and I would urge anyone with information to contact police on 101, quoting reference number 605 20\/08\/25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">&#8220;A report can be made online using the non-emergency reporting form via http:\/\/www.psni.police.uk\/makeareport\/ or you can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http:\/\/crimestoppers-uk.org\/.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cannabis had an estimated street value of around \u00a3400k The operation spanned two floors Police discovered a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1384,1144,1610,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-360216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-down-news","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115062807585416684","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}