Gang jailed after turning nursing home into £450,000 cannabis farm
Six Albanian men have been jailed after police discovered £450,000 worth of cannabis growing in an abandoned nursing home.
Alitor Deda, 30, Andi Teta, 33, Ali Qerfozi, 42, Erijon Gjoka, 21, Edison Markeci, 21, and Agostin Marku, 36 all admitted to farming the plant.
Police broke into the former Moorfield House Nursing Home in Leeds on December 4 last year, where the men worked as ‘gardeners’.
They found 811 cannabis plants growing in six rooms, with another 27 rooms set up with amps, transformers, fans, timers and carbon filters in preparation.
The plants were capable of producing 44kg of the class B drug, prosecutor Paul Canfield said during the men’s sentencing at Leeds Crown Court yesterday.
The street value of the cannabis was up to £446,000 he added, while the equipment used to grow the plants was worth up to £45,000.
When police raided the building, the gang spotted the officers on CCTV and hid in a cellar, where they were eventually found.
The search also revealed mattresses for sleeping and a ‘well-stocked’ fridge, along with weapons such as baseball bats and machetes.
The electricity was found to be bypassing the standard meter system.
The men, of no fixed address, were all arrested and taken to the police station where they later all admitted a charge of producing cannabis.
Teta also admitted possession of cocaine after two small bags were found on him. All said they had been recruited to perform simple tasks and tending to the crops.
In mitigation, Ben Campbell said of Qerfozi that he was a delivery driver in Albania who had arrived illegally in the UK in September last year and lived in London.
Mr Campbell said he had wanted to return home but answered an advert for a gardener on Facebook, before being taken to Leeds and told to water the plants.
The barrister, also representing Teta, said he had only been there a matter of days and was put to work to pay off a debt for being transported illegally to the UK.
Salek Ahmed, for Markeci, said he had come to the UK illegally on the back of a lorry with the ‘hope of a better life’ and to support his elderly parents back in Albania.
He said he had no intention of becoming involved in criminality but was put to work in the old nursing home and accepted ‘he made a terrible mistake’.
For Deda, Chloe Fairley said her client had been in the UK since 2016 and had arrived illegally, but had since married an NHS nurse and lived in London.
He had a National Insurance number and paid taxes but struggled to find work.
She said he had accepted a construction job in Leeds but was duped into working on the cannabis farm.
Mitigating for Gjoka, Imran Khan said he was forced to work so he could pay off debts for his father’s heart surgery.
‘He is a young man who had a heavy responsibility placed on his shoulders,” the barrister added.
Finally, for Marku, Shannon Woodley said he was brought from Southampton to Leeds and was ‘misled’ about the work, which he thought would be in construction.
He was in the UK illegally and also only arrived at the home three days prior to the bust, having received no financial reward, she added.
Qerfozi, Deda and Teta were all jailed for two years each while Gjoka received 18 months. Marku and Markeci both received 16 months in prison.
All were told they should expect to be deported once their sentence is served.
The judge, recorder Ian Mullarkey said: ‘It’s an abandoned property but of some size. Having forced their way in, police found an operation that was both sophisticated and extensive.
‘It was a highly-professional setup… Each of you arrived illegally from Albania. You knew you were engaged in cannabis growing of a very substantial scale.’
The Judge said that if the remaining rooms had been utilised to grow cannabis, the value of the grow would have been ‘even more considerable’.
After sentencing, Sergeant Simon Green, of the Leeds North West Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: ‘This was a large-scale cannabis farm which was clearly being run as part of an organised criminal enterprise.
‘Our operation has stopped nearly half a million pounds worth of the drug reaching the streets, where this illegal trade fuels associated crime and anti-social behaviour.’
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