Ponteland homes targeted in drug raids

Jul 10 2009 by Adam Jupp, The Journal

PLUSH homes on some of the North East’s most exclusive estates have been raided as part of an operation targeting organised crime gangs.

Police visited 11 properties across the region and made 20 arrests in connection with an alleged cannabis conspiracy.

They included houses on the up-market Darras Hall and Great Park estates, as well as others in Newcastle and Washington, Sunderland.

Drugs worth around £1.2m were also recovered, along with seven vehicles, in the early-morning raids. The operation – codenamed Attero – was led by Northumbria Police’s newly-created Total Policing Task Force, which has been set up to disrupt and dismantle organised crime families across the region.

Det Supt Peter Farrell said: “This has been about Northumbria Police attacking an organised crime group operating in Newcastle, which has national connections also and we have been working with other forces in relation to that.

“It is about much much more than recovering cannabis plants from properties, important as that is.

“This is about taking out those who are organising this criminality, those who are profiteering from cannabis farms. That is what Northumbria Police is attacking through this operation.”

The raids were carried out simultaneously at 11 different addresses.

Farms were targeted in Meldon Terrace, Heaton, Sidney Grove and Brighton Grove, Fenham, Chestnut Avenue, Cowgate, and Sycamore Grove, Washington.