A worker in a cannabis factory fled across the rooftops of a row of terraced houses as police forced their way in through the front door, a court has heard. Geraldo Xixi spent half an hour on the roofs before returning to earth and being arrested in a nearby garden.
A search of the house the defendant fled from uncovered a commercial scale operation with 130 plants in plastic-lined rooms, lights, fans, timers, and fertilizer. It also emerged the people who set up the farm had dug up the street outside and tapped directly into the mains electricity cable before relaying the road.
Swansea Crown Court heard Xixi later claimed a gang had brought him the the UK because of a "blood feud" after his father killed a man in their hometown in Albania.
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Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said on the morning of May 14 this year police officers from the organised crime team in Swansea executed a search warrant at a house on Prince of Wales Road near the Palace Theatre. He said officers positioned themselves around the house and then forced entry, and as officers went in through the front door they saw a man - now known to be 26-year-old Xixi - climbing from the rear of the property on the roof.
The defendant then made his way across the roofs of adjacent houses in an attempt to escape, before eventually climbing down into a rear garden of a property on High Street where he was arrested.
A search of the house on Prince of Wales Road revealed a downstairs room, two bedrooms, and the attic had been converted into a cannabis growing facility with plastic-lined walls, lamps, fans and ducting, and timers. There was evidence one room had been used for drying harvested crops, in the kitchen were stocks fertilizer, and the electricity meter had been bypassed. In total police found 130 plants.
Mr Scapens said engineers from Western Power attended the scene and found the street had previously been dug up and the main electricity cable directly tapped into, and the road then re-laid. He said the engineers found the main cable showed "extreme signs of overheating", and that tampering with the supply could have caused death and had put neighbouring properties in "significant danger". You can take a look inside a massive cannabis factory a family set up in a remote Welsh country house after moving from Hampshire here.
The barrister said police drug experts concluded the house was a "commercial scale operation" with a potential yield of 11,000g cannabis with a wholesale value of up to £57,000 and a street value considerably higher.
In his subsequent interview Xixi said he was a victim of modern slavery who was brought into the UK to work in construction by a gang who knew he was involved in a family "blood feud" after his father killed a man in their hometown. He said he had been at the address since the previous December, and was being paid £100 a week.
Mr Scapens said following claims about modern slavery a Home Office investigation was carried out which determined the defendant was not a victim of trafficking or modern slavery. The barrister said Xixi had family in the UK, had been free to come and go from the Prince of Wales house, and had phones he could use, adding that officers had found a number of items of new designer clothing in the property along with supplies of fresh food.
Geraldo Xixi, of no fixed abode, had previously pleaded guilty to producing cannabis when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. The plea was entered on the basis that a gang had brought him into the UK in December 2021 for £22,000 on the promise they would find him work in construction, and that he had come to the UK to raise funds for his mother's medical care. Mr Scapens said the prosecution did not accept that basis of plea, but did not seek to challenge it. The prosecutor said the defendant has no previous convictions in the UK, while inquiries with the Albanian authorities about any convictions in that country have gone "unanswered".
Hywel Davies, for Xixi, said the defendant had been studying business management in Albania but had left college without completing the course due to his mother's ill-health, and that they were his instructions that the defendant had come to the UK to earn money quickly for his mother's medical care. He said given his client's immigration status a custodial sentence was inevitable, and that Xixi would be deported at the end of his sentence. The barrister said character references submitted to the court showed a different side to the defendant's character.
Judge Geraint Walters said the defendant was clearly working in a cannabis plantation being run by an Albanian serious organised criminal gang, and that the proceeds of operations such as the one on Prince of Wales Road were used to fund other criminal activity. He said investigations into cannabis farms needed to be taken "much more seriously" by police in order to identify those higher up the ladder in the gangs as that was the only way to stop their activities - and he suggested a good place to start might be to check who defendants had been in contact with, and to find out who was paying the rent on the properties being used. The judge said the reality was the gang involved in the Xixi case had probably already set up a new cannabis farm somewhere in Swansea to replace the one found by police in May.
Judge Walters said he didn't believe much of Xixi's basis of plea but as it was not being challenged by the prosecution he would be faithful to it in passing sentence. With a one-quarter discount for his guilty plea Xixi was sentenced to 12 months in prison. The judge said any deportation was a matter for the Home Office.
Prosecutor Mr Scapens said it was his understanding that police inquires into the Prince of Wales Road house had concluded.
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