Four people have been arrested and £1m worth of drugs seized following a six-month police investigation into a suspected illegal drugs network.
Greater Manchester Police said officers from the Serious Organised Crime Group (SOCG) and the Tactical Aid Unit executed a search warrant yesterday at a property on Manchester Road in Rochdale.
It said the address “appeared to be a residential property” from the outside, but inside officers “discovered vast quantities of suspected illicit drugs with an estimated value of more than £1m”.
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Officers also found a list of more than 100 different drugs “believed to have been supplied by the organised crime group”, including Class A, B and C drugs.
A “significant proportion of the haul” consisted of prescription-only medication, including weight loss drugs, police added.
And an estimated £60,000 in cash was recovered from the property, along with over 30 mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Greater Manchester Police said two men aged 52 and 23 were arrested on Twingate, Rochdale, on suspicion of conspiracy to supply Class A, B and C drugs.
Officers also arrested a 51-year-old man on Whittaker Lane, Rochdale, and a 44-year-old man on Kingsway, Manchester, on suspicion of conspiracy to supply Class A, B and C drugs.
Read more: More than 20,000 prescription medicines seized in police search
All four men remain in custody for questioning.
Police said detectives will now examine the evidence from the case and conduct searches “to build a clearer picture of the full scale of the suspected operation, including how the drugs were being sourced, stored and distributed”.
“Sophisticated” crime group
SOCG detective inspector Rich McCorry said Greater Manchester Police believes this is “a sophisticated and well-established organised crime group”.
“The premises we entered today were fully equipped with security measures, laptops and large quantities of drugs, indicating what we suspect was a highly organised operation supplying drugs both online and in person to customers nationally,” he added.
“This type of criminality fuels violence, exploitation and misery in our communities, while those responsible seek to profit from it. We are determined to dismantle these networks.”
Read more: Three sentenced over pharmacy prescription drug theft
It comes after two men were arrested last week on suspicion of possession with intent to supply Class A, B and C drugs after police seized over 20,000 prescription medicines from one of their addresses.
And it follows three people, including two former pharmacy workers, being sentenced over offences linked to the theft and supply of prescription-only medicines in Somerset.
