An Albanian man brought to the UK illegally with the promise of a better life before being put to work in a cannabis farm by an organised crime gang has been jailed.
Klajdi Karaj, despondent at the low paid jobs on offer in his homeland, responded to adverts on social media which told of the relative riches on offer in the UK. Having been smuggled into the country and put to work in a car wash and building site, the gang then told him he needed to pay his transportation debts more quickly and moved him to look after the cannabis farm.
Police executed a search warrant at Stratford Road, Heaton, Newcastle, on May 24 this year and found four rooms of the house had been turned into a cannabis farm. A total of 148 plants were present and the electricity meter had been bypassed. The court heard the value of the farm was somewhere between £14,000 and £61,000.
