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Investigators seize cannabis from a house in Soka, Saitama Prefecture, on Sunday. (Mainichi)

SAITAMA -- Police have arrested five men on suspicion of drug possession, seizing several hundred cannabis plants.

Shotoku Kaneda (real name: Kim Chang-tok), 29, of South Korean nationality and an unemployed resident in Tokyo's Taito Ward, was among the five arrested on Saturday for violating the Cannabis Control Law.

The five are specifically suspected of possessing about 70 grams of marijuana and potted cannabis plants at a house rented by them in the Saitama Prefecture city of Soka on Saturday.

Some of the suspects were quoted as telling investigators that they possessed the drugs "not for commercial purposes."

The five have rented houses in residential areas in Soka, Yashio and Kawaguchi cities since October 2008 with another three men -- who have also been arrested on suspicion of cannabis possession -- to set up cannabis grow-ops, police said. They were paying more than 600,000 yen every month in rent and electricity bills. Some 336 potted cannabis plants were seized from the houses.

Police were tipped off by a neighbor in Soka, who reported seeing several men going in and out of a shuttered house whose air conditioners were left on all the time.