Imperial Property Group said it rented homes to NHS staff.In fact, they were torn apart to create drug factories, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage.Why has the culprit not been brought to justice?When Hajaj Hajaj decided to rent out his house in south London in the summer of 2020, his daughter, Kinda Jackson, urged him to use a reputable lettings agent for peace of mind.Her father had enough on his plate.Hajaj, a 79-year-old retired garage owner, is the primary carer for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

The income from the rental property in Lewisham is effectively Hajaj’s pension, which he uses to pay for her care.So, when a manager from Imperial Property Group contacted Hajaj about his Gumtree listing, Hajaj arranged to meet them.A sharp-suited British Asian man named Shan Miah arrived in a sports car.He was in his late 20s or early 30s, charming and confident.He boasted of his business interests in Dubai.

“He was doing very well for himself,” Hajaj says.Miah explained that Imperial was different from other lettings agencies.A company of 70 years standing, Imperial had four London offices, employing 121 people, and had sold or rented 83,000 properties, according to its website.It specialised in corporate lets to NHS staff and IT consultants.Imperial would manage the property, dealing with tenants and paying for repairs.

Should the tenants leave early, Imperial would cover their rent.For all this, Imperial charged … nothing.Its fees were 0%.All it required in return was that Hajaj didn’t contact his tenants directly and gave two months’ notice if he wanted the property back.Hajaj assumed that Imperial marked up the rent to the corporate professionals living in the property.

He signed with them in July 2020 and for two years, the rent kept coming.Although the bank accounts the money came in from changed every few months, Hajaj did not think this was unusual, as it was a corporate let.In December 2020, Hajaj contracted Covid.He was placed in a coma and spent six months in hospital.He had to relearn how to eat, drink and walk.

His family were called to say goodbye to him three times.As he recovered, Hajaj’s thoughts turned to the Lewisham house.It had been nearly two years since he had set foot inside.On 10 May 2022, Hajaj emailed Imperial to request a viewing.“The property has been kept in immaculate condition and with regular interval checks,” replied Imperial’s administrator, Sarah Barnes.

Hajaj was mollified.He replied to Barnes detailing how important this let was to him.“Please note, the income is mainly covering the full time care which I provide for my wife … [who] unfortunately is suffering from dementia,” he wrote.He told Barnes how he had nearly died.“We wish you and your partner the best of health,” she responded, adding: “It is clear you do not need any extra headache.

”But in November 2022, the rent didn’t arrive as usual.Imperial said it would evict the tenants, a process that could take months.Barnes sent court papers, to show proceedings were under way.Under no circumstances, Barnes emphasised, should Hajaj go to the property.“Forcing entry will result in the tenants calling the police,” Barnes wrote.

Besides, the property had been inspected on 10 December 2022 and all was well, she added.The months dragged on.Hajaj sent beseeching emails.“I am unable to sleep or concentrate as this is the only income I have … My wife needs 24 hours care.I had to borrow money from the bank at [an] astronomical rate.

” This time, Barnes’s response was cold.“Please refrain from constantly emailing … We will not tolerate abuse or unprofessionalism.”The tenants would be legally evicted, Barnes wrote in a subsequent email, by 18 April 2023.That date came and went.Hajaj heard no word from Imperial.

So he went to the house.What he found there was worse than he could possibly have imagined.“How can a human being be so hard?” says Hajaj with despair, as he surveys the wreck of his property more than a year later.In October 2023, Michelle Chen skulked outside her property in Milton Keynes.It was 3am and she was on a stakeout.

After she listed her house on Gumtree in September 2022, Miah approached her, too.“I checked the Google reviews,” says Chen, 43, an education consultant.“All perfect.”But something was awry.She knew it.

Chen lived in the same development as her rental house and passed it daily.None of the lights were ever on, apart from the bathroom and hallway light, which were always on.But Barnes insisted that Imperial had inspected the property recently.“Rest assured, your property is in excellent condition,” she wrote in an email.Then, in October 2023, the rent was late.

Chen did what she hadn’t done for a year.She rechecked Imperial’s Google reviews.One stood out.“Our house has been turned into a cannabis farm … STAY CLEAR OF THESE CRIMINALS.” It had been written by Jackson, Hajaj’s daughter.

“Oh my God,” says Chen, recalling the moment she read the review.“That’s exactly what’s happening in my house.” Chen didn’t know much about cannabis farms, but she knew that the criminals hacked into the electricity supply to run cabling to the lamps.What if her house exploded? Chen pulled on a coat and headed into the night.In the dark, the house glowered at her.

She needed to get back into her property.But who would help her?When Hajaj opened his front door on 22 April 2023, he found a hidden wall, reinforced with steel and secured with three locks.He called the police.Inside, officers found 160 cannabis plants, with a street value of about £160,000.Also present was Niazi Hysa, then 38.

Officers handcuffed him and walked him to Lewisham police station, which is next door to Hajaj’s house, scarcely 350m away.“You can’t make this stuff up, can you?” says Jackson, from south London, who is 46 and works in PR.When I meet Hajaj in his house in Lewisham a year later, it is still uninhabitable.The growers punched holes in the ceilings and connected a snaking system of ventilation shafts.They cut through the roof joists to build an internal wall.

Hajaj was quoted £200,000 by a builder to fix it.Hajaj’s insurer won’t pay out, because Imperial didn’t take references for the tenants, obtain photo ID or inspect the property.Imperial also never took the tenants to court after they stopped paying rent; this was a ruse, to stall for time.Hajaj has been trying to repair the property himself, but he is nearly 80.Hysa appeared before Woolwich crown court on 12 July 2023.

The court heard that he had arrived in the UK on a small boat, hoping to earn money to support his wife and then two-year-old daughter, who was unwell.His asylum application had been rejected and he was homeless when he was approached and offered food and accommodation – but no money – in exchange for tending cannabis plants at Hajaj’s house.Hysa said he was afraid to say no to the unnamed person who recruited him.The judge determined that Hysa was a victim of “intimidation”, but nonetheless sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment.“It’s a familiar story,” says Prof Gary Potter, a criminologist at Lancaster University who specialises in cannabis farms.

“Illegal immigrants are coerced into cannabis cultivation and treated as criminals, when arguably they are victims.” Many are trafficked and told by people smugglers that they must work for an unspecified amount of time to repay their debts, which can run into tens of thousands of pounds.If they refuse, gangs often threaten their families back home.Hysa is Albanian.“The Albanian community has been implicated in cannabis cultivation and there are organised gangs involved in importing cannabis from Albania,” says Potter.

In one Imperial property, a two-bedroom house in Dartford, Kent, that was turned into a cannabis farm in 2023, the words “on” and “off” were written in Albanian by a light switch.But Potter emphasises that “most of the people who grow cannabis in the UK are white British nationals”.While Hysa was prosecuted, the Metropolitan police were incurious about the lettings agency that had repeatedly assured Hajaj that all was well in his property.“Generally, the grower gets nicked and dealt with for drug offences,” says a senior police inspector in the south of England, who asked not to be named.After a prison sentence, they may be deported.

There is little institutional appetite to go after the organised gangs involved in forcing people into modern-day slavery, he says, because police forces are under-resourced and these investigations are complex and time-consuming, particularly when frightened victims won’t cooperate.“It’s not a priority at all,” he says.When officers found Hysa under a bed, he was hiding beside two sharpened metal poles, presumably for protection.In the Dartford house, the back door was smashed in; security cameras overlooking the rear garden had previously been installed.Cannabis farms are at risk from rival gangs, who seek to steal fully grown plants around the time of the harvest.

In December 2021, 25-year-old Xhovan Pepaj was stabbed to death in Tunbridge Wells by a gang who were robbing a farm he was cultivating.“Human beings are being exploited and put at such risk,” says the senior police inspector.Between 2015 and 2024, the Met recorded 8,000 offences related to cannabis farming or cannabis production, according to data provided after a freedom of information request by the Guardian.Charges were brought in less than one-third of cases.“That will be a fraction of the size of the illegal cultivation that goes on,” says Potter.

“There will be hundreds of thousands of cannabis farms in the UK.” Britain used to import its cannabis from Morocco and Pakistan, but shifted towards domestic cultivation in the 90s.The pandemic supercharged domestic production, with Met data showing that cannabis cultivation increased 70% between 2019 and 2020 (although it has since decreased).This explosion, says Potter, was mostly fuelled by amateur growers turning over a spare room or garage to make some extra income.“With modern technology, such as carbon filters and grow tents, I’ve been in people’s houses where I’ve not been able to smell it until they take me upstairs and open the tent,” he says