Officers from Wiltshire Police’s Local Priority Team carried out a midnight raid on 22 February 2017 against RGHQ Chilmark, an underground nuclear bunker built in the 1980s to house local government in a nuclear attack.[1] The site was no longer owned by the Ministry of Defence, but its nuclear blast doors were still in place and almost impenetrable, so officers intercepted three men as they left and used their keys to get inside.[1][2] Almost every one of the bunker’s roughly 20 rooms across two floors had been converted to grow cannabis, with evidence of previous crops.[2]
Six arrested, three jailed
Three males found inside, aged 15, 19 and 37 with no fixed abode and believed to be gardeners, were arrested on suspicion of cannabis production.[2] Three other men, aged 27, 30 and 45, were arrested outside on suspicion of cannabis production and human trafficking offences.[2] Martin Fillery, 45, of Ashcott, Plamen Nguyen, 27, of Bristol, and Ross Winter, 30, of Bristol, appeared at Salisbury Crown Court on 9 June 2017 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce class B drugs and abstracting electricity, with Fillery also admitting money laundering.[1]
On 11 August 2017 at Salisbury Crown Court, Fillery was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Winter and Nguyen each received five years.[3] Prosecutors said the farm was capable of producing £2 million worth of cannabis a year, and 4,400 plants were seized, of which 643 kg had to be incinerated.[3] Slavery charges against the three were dropped even though investigators found four Vietnamese men locked inside with no access to keys; three were later deported and the fourth claimed asylum.[3]
