A dramatic video shows the moment police carried out a raid on a drugs gang that used a frozen meat firm as a front to smuggle cannabis worth £3.25m into the UK.
The clip, filmed on officer bodycams, shows investigators breaking down a door and arresting one of the suspects during a raid on a residential house, which eventually lead to three men being jailed.
Badrul Alam, 35, from Nelson, Lancashire; Ismail Ahmed, 36, from Burnley; and Yamin Patel, 34, from Blackburn, were all jailed after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis resin and conspiracy to supply herbal cannabis.
A fourth man, Gary McCann, 59, of Burnley, also pleaded guilty to the charges and will be sentenced on January 10 next year.
Lancashire Police discovered the hidden drugs following a chance encounter in August last year.
An officer working on an unrelated inquiry was drawn to the warehouse for A2Z Meats, in Oswaldtwistle, when some the meat went off and gave out a 'death smell'.
The PC repeatedly hammered on the door and called the telephone number given on the front of the premises but when he was unable to gain access, he called for back-up and found what was described as a 'sophisticated cannabis set up' which was being fronted by a meat-packing factory.
A workstation had been set up within the body of the industrial unit with a pallet wall in the centre.
On one side was a stack of boxes containing mostly frozen cow meat which was being unpacked and hurled into bins.
Underneath the meat were heat-sealed packets of skunk cannabis and cannabis resin, police said.
A section of the pallet wall had also been set up as a cleaning station.
Police said it appeared the packets of drugs were taken out of the boxes, where they were mixed with the meat, before they were cleaned and re-packaged.
A video clip, posted by Lancashire Police, shows officers rushing to the front door of a property before breaking it down
One man is seen being arrested and taken from the property shortly after officers smash their way in
Preston Crown Court heard 220kg of skunk cannabis and 208kg of cannabis resin with a street value of £3.25million was found inside four boxes.
CCTV footage recovered from the area during investigations showed a HGV, registered to a haulage company in Spain, arrived at the unit that morning and a number of crates were delivered.
Also that morning, defendant Gary McCann was captured on CCTV moving bins outside the unit in preparation for removing the cannabis from inside the boxes of meat.
Lancashire police said further examination of documentation showed there had been around eight similar deliveries to the unit from the Spanish haulage company between March 2020 and August 2020.
Investigations revealed the unit was being rented by all three men and used as a cover to take the
