Dutch police catch cannabis growers after spotting snow-free roof

Police in the Netherlands have swooped on a house in the town of Haarlem, arresting the owner for growing cannabis plants, after they noticed that his house was the only one in the street not covered in snow.

A dusting of snow covered all the roofs in the town, except for one.

Once inside, police found industrial-scale cultivation of cannabis, and the heat lamps used to nurture the plants.

After the raid in the town near Amsterdam on February 5, officers tweeted the photo of the house as a warning to other growers.

The Netherlands is known for its tolerant attitude towards personal consumption of marijuana. However, the Dutch government only tolerates the cultivation of up to five cannabis plants, and people are only allowed to carry up to five grams of weed (0.17 ounces) each.

The previous week, officials had used the same technique to identify and raid a cannabis farm in the city of Zutphen, where they found a bedroom filled with 88 marijuana plants. Two days later, one person was arrested in Arnhem after police discovered a similar plantation.

It was not clear how much cannabis was seized in the Haarlem raid.

The Dutch police are not the only ones to use heat signals to detect the presence of plantations.

In 2013, the West Midlands Police department released a video on YouTube that showed a plantation in Birmingham seen through a thermal-imaging camera.

Police described it as being "lit up like a beacon". Authorities then raided an apartment, in which they found 143 cannabis plants.

The technique is certainly not fail proof, however.

In 2009 police raided a home in Yorkshire, certain that the heat coming from the property was due to lamps for cannabis plants. Instead, they found a wood burning stove.

For more stories, like the Telegraph's Facebook page by clicking on the link below