HOKKAIDO (TR) – Hokkaido Prefectural Police have re-arrested two men for cultivating marijuana for profit after uncovering the largest indoor cannabis farming operation in the prefecture’s history, reports HBC News (Aug. 11).
Unemployed Sapporo resident Renma Nakagawa, 30, and his acquaintance, Yusuke Sato, 30, were served fresh arrest warrants on August 11, police announced. The pair had originally been caught and arrested on July 21 for possession of marijuana.
The arrests follow a massive raid on a Sapporo City warehouse that had previously been used as a food manufacturing plant but sat abandoned for roughly a decade.
Inside the facility, investigators discovered a highly sophisticated grow operation. Police seized 1,083 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of 100 million yen, along with 330 grams of dried marijuana valued at approximately 1.65 million yen. Authorities noted that this marks the largest cannabis seizure ever made from a single building in Hokkaido.
Grow lights, liquid fertilizer, and potting soil were also confiscated from the scene.
According to police, investigators first received a tip-off in June 2025 that marijuana was being cultivated at the site. Authorities spent approximately a year conducting undercover surveillance before finally raiding the warehouse last month.
Police have declined to reveal whether Nakagawa and Sato have admitted to the charges, citing the ongoing investigation.
Detectives are now working to uncover the full scope of the operation, including tracing the pair’s sales routes and investigating potential accomplices or links to organized crime syndicates.
