Police Raid House on Warwick Road W5

---

Kidnap gang used Ealing address as hideout and cannabis factory

A house on Warwick Road, near Ealing Common, was the unlikely setting for an armed drug raid earlier this week.

Carrying semi-automatic guns, police swooped on 16 Warwick Road, on Monday as part of a drug and kidnap investigation.

They found more than 1,000 cannabis plants in the six-bedroom house. The imposing residence is believed to have been rented by a south-east Asian gang to cultivate the plants and use as a 'hideout' for a kidnapping.

Neighbouring residents witnessed the whole operation - from the point when the police drew guns from the back of their unmarked car. And well into Tuesday police could be seen guarding the crime scene while forensic experts searched the cannabis factory for leads.

Police were led to the address after officers in an unmarked car were forced to ram a Chrysler people carrier close to the junction of Golders Green Road and the A406 chasing the alleged kidnappers.

A 24-year-old man was arrested in the house on suspicion of kidnapping and drug offences, and is being held at a central London police station. And officers arrested another man after he was discharged from hospital. Both men remain in custody at separate central London police stations.

Local W5 residents were incredulous at such dramatic and out of character events happening on the doorstep. "You just don't expect these kind of things to be going on so close to home," said a resident who walks past the house every day. "You see this kind of thing on the news, not up the road. It's a bit close for comfort."

 

 

 

 

September 11, 2008