The illegal cannabis industry is booming in the United Kingdom, with the amount of the substance confiscated this past year nearly quintuple (26,924 kilograms) the previous one (5,609).
According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), the now-convicted traffickers used fake documents or aliases to lease their illegal farms.
One victim, identified as Witness Z, testified that traffickers handled his transport to the UK in November 2020 to pay off a loan for his wife’s medical treatment, but then held him in debt bondage for the travel expenses. He was put to work at one location, then shifted to others. It was at a cannabis raid at Teesside, an urban area in North East England, that law enforcement found him in June 2021.
A UK trafficker can make between £150 and £1,000 per day.
Officers discovered a note from the victim pinned to a bedroom door inside the house, evidently addressed to the traffickers: “Take what you want, please don’t hit me, I do not know English.” They also found a handwritten diary entry from Witness Z describing being beaten and forced to work as a slave.
The ringleader of the gang, already a convicted trafficker, was arrested along with two accomplices, a middleman and two taxi drivers, who were paid hundreds of pounds to transport migrants, cannabis and equipment around the properties scattered across the UK.
All denied accusations of trafficking for exploitation. All were found guilty.
NCA Branch Commander Kevin Broadhead said: “Not only were the migrants transported to the UK in incredibly dangerous ways in lorries or in boats, but they were then made to live in degrading conditions in order to pay off their debt bondage. We know some were also subjected to violence. But this gang didn’t care about that, they only saw the migrants as a way to make money.”
Human trafficking in the UK is, indeed, a way to make money. Even the maximum prison sentence appears to be a small deterrent to the enterprising slave merchant when the financial benefits are far beyond an average workaday salary: A UK trafficker can make between £150 and £1,000 per day, and the sale of one human being can net the enslaver anywhere from £500 to £8,000. One successful slavery gambit—used in the case of Witness Z and others—is to “charitably” pay the grateful victim’s travel expenses, but then demand the money back once the victim arrives at his destination. The money demanded is far more than the money spent—as much as £25,000—and impossible for the victim to repay.
A cooperative victim is the ideal victim in the trafficking world, and there are many ways to enforce cooperation: drugs and alcohol; violence; threats of violence to victims’ families; stealing victim IDs and documentation; isolation; preventing victims from learning the local language; and frequently changing their location to keep them disoriented and helpless.
His Majesty’s Government received reports of nearly 20,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2024.
According to the Global Slavery Index, the figure is more than 120,000.
Even one is far too much.
