Charges over £15m drugs operation

Police have seized about 27,000 cannabis plants

More than 70 people from South East Asia have been charged in connection with a £15m drug manufacturing operation in Northern Ireland.

Police said 80 cannabis factories have been found so far this year and about 27,000 plants and 410lb of herbal cannabis seized.

Chief Inspector Peter Moore said the drugs were being manufactured for a market outside the province.

"The involvement of the Triads is one avenue that we're looking at," he said.

Chief Inspector Moore said that enforcement elsewhere in the United Kingdom may have "displaced the criminal gangs to look at Northern Ireland as a venue where perhaps they wouldn't come under the microscope of law enforcement".

"They were wrong and very much came under our microscope and will continue to do so," he said.

There have been suggestions that some of the people taking care of the plants did not even know they were in Northern Ireland.

"I am quite content that we have a significant of people in custody who were involved in the organisational level of this criminality there are also of course others who have been exploited by the criminal gangs and been left in these houses to tend the plants," Mr Moore said.

He added that landlords should check their properties regularly to ensure they were not being used for such activities.