Police raid Fitton Hill cannabis farmhouse during Op Avro

Operation Avro is an annual day of action across Oldham, and sees hundreds of officers take to the streets for both targeted and proactive enforcement.

This morning, after a short briefing in Oldham, officers were handed more than 90 files on wanted people and operations they would be pursuing throughout the day.

One team, joined by Chief Inspector of Oldham, Chris Fowler, and The Oldham Times, headed to a house in Fitton Hill.

The address, on Rosary Road, was raided by a dozen officers who had put the door through using a ram.

With officers also stationed at the back door, they searched the home and found none of the individuals linked to the address.

However, they did discover a large cannabis farm in one of the rooms upstairs, including a large quantity of plants, as well as equipment.

CI Fowler explained: "This is the wholesale growing of cannabis, which I point out is an illegal drug, in circumstances whereby it will be sold on and cause great misery, and provide great financial reward for the people responsible.

"This is organised criminality on a large scale.

"It is only 8 oclock in the morning; this is still developing.

"We will find these people, we will hunt them down, and they will see the inside of a police cell, and the inside of a court

"This is illegal, and it will not be tolerated.

"On this occasion, the people concerned have been lucky they were not here, but I can assure them, and anybody who does this, you will not be lucky all the time.

"We will find you, we will deal with this, we do not tolerate this in our communities."

Operation Avro will continue to be in action across the borough for the rest of the day, with traffic operations, facial recognition, and community engagement also taking place.

By the halfway mark this afternoon, Greater Manchester Police's Oldham district had made 36 arrests, seized 200 cannabis plants, 200 nitrous oxide canisters, and executed five warrants.