The cannabis factory comprised no less than 30 plants

Aug 12, 2014 13:38 GMT  ·  By

Not too long ago, police officers in the UK stumbled upon a cannabis factory hidden inside one of the country's mental hospitals. The factory was discovered by mistake, meaning that officers found it while looking for a missing person.

Information shared with the public says that the cannabis factory was found in late June, on the 30th day of the month, inside the Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff, Mirror informs.

“South Wales Police can confirm a cannabis factory of around 30 plants was discovered within the grounds of Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff,” a spokesperson for the local police told the press in an interview.

The factory was located inside a disused ward and comprised as many as 30 cannabis plants estimated to be worth about £32,000 (approximately €40,093 / $53,702), the same source details.

An investigation was launched shortly after the discovery of this secret cannabis growing operation. However, detectives and police officers are yet to figure out who the more or less proud owners of the weed might be.

By the looks of it, the ward that served as a home for the 30 cannabis plants was abandoned several decades ago. It is still unclear how the weed growers gained access to it and how they managed to set up their factory without drawing any attention to themselves.

The folks in charge of running the Whitchurch Hospital maintain that, since the ward was covered with wooden boards, they never noticed anything suspicious going on inside it. They say that, had they been aware of the existence of the factory, they would have surely called the police.

“This has happened in a small corner of a big hospital in an area that was sealed and unused for many, many years,” Abigail Harris, the health board's director of planning, commented on the discovery of the cannabis factory in a statement.

“It is a highly unusual and isolated case which is being carefully reviewed with police. We would encourage anyone with information about this incident to contact the police,” Abigail Harris went on to explain. Hopefully, somebody will soon step forward and shed some light on this case.

Interestingly enough, word has it that the dealer or the gang behind the cannabis farm did not settle for simply using the disused ward to grow weed. On the contrary, it seems that they somehow found a way to tap into the hospital's electricity supply, and thus get the energy that they needed to power ultraviolet lights and ventilators.