Suburban cannabis factory

This is the £500,000 cannabis factory hidden in a quiet residential street.

Detectives who raided the east London house seized hundreds of plants along with lights, heaters, fans and seeds.

Police believe drugs barons are making millions of pounds a year by growing cannabis in suburbs, where they are less likely to attract attention.

Last month detectives found the body of a Vietnamese man in a drugs factory in a house in Alperton, west London. A postmortem revealed his throat had been slashed.

The latest discovery came when an estate agent checked on a £450,000 five-bedroom house in upper Leytonstone.

Robert Ellice called round this week after landlord Marcia Thompson said she had not had any rent.

He said: "My colleague Stuart saw a man leap out the back. He chased and saw him making a phone call.

"We found all rooms except the one they slept in stuffed with plants and equipment. Every window was sealed from the watching public." He said police, who have sealed off the house, had told them they were finding three such drug factories a week in London: "In all the years I've been in property, I have never seen anything like it."

Mrs Thompson, who lives in Zambia, said: "I came here on a two-week holiday to sort out my house. I was horrified." It is understood two Chinese men had rented the house over the last couple of months through a go-between.

When the Standard visited, the air was hot and thick with the smell of marijuana. There were lights and fans around each crop, and doors to rooms had been replaced by foil-lined curtains. Four-foot-high plants grew in black pots.

In the cellar were dozens of black bags full of cannabis resin, with a street value of £3,000 a kilo.

A neighbour said: "This is a street of young professionals and families. There's a church, a boating lake nearby, children play in the street. Who would have guessed this was taking place?"