Humberside Police executed a warrant at a unit on Park Farm Road on the Foxhills Industrial Estate and found more than 15,000 cannabis plants in various stages of cultivation, in what detectives called a professional industrial-scale grow.[1] Forensic teams spent almost a week removing the plants and equipment for destruction, and police put the crop’s street value at between £2.5 million and £4 million.[2][1] Three men were arrested at the warehouse: two aged 29 and 48 on suspicion of producing a controlled drug, and a 50-year-old on suspicion of supplying one.[1]

The three were charged with producing cannabis between 1 June and 30 July.[2] One of them, Quang Van Ho, a Vietnamese man brought from London in the night with the promise of a job, had been locked inside the factory for two months with only rice to eat, behind doors screwed shut.[2] At Grimsby Crown Court the case against the men collapsed after they were found to be victims of trafficking and modern slavery; Ho had spent six months on remand before he was cleared and released with a travel warrant.[2] Police said the investigation continued to trace the suspected ringleaders behind the factory.[2]