Four illegal immigrants are behind bars after Northumbria Police found their biggest ever cannabis farm - a £1.65m drugs factory in an 18th Century former student accommodation building.
Criminals had converted the red-brick structure, which was built in the 1700s, into a cannabis factory, capable of producing industrial quantities and they caused significant damage to it in the process. Newcastle Crown Court the four-storey Fenham Hall Studios, in Fenham, Newcastle, contained 200 rooms and had been illegally adapted in a "highly professional and sophisticated set up".
The cannabis farm had growing areas on three floors and separate living quarters for those who tended to the crops. Richard Herrmann, prosecuting, told the court 3,265 viable plants were seized when the building was raided in April last year.
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Four Albanian nationals, who had travelled to the UK illegally, were found hiding in the building and all later admitted producing cannabis. Albric Deraj, 22, Ilir Cela, 34, Mario Qosjas, 37, and Aurel Barpeerrja, 41, all of no fixed address, have now been jailed for 28 months each.
Prosecutors accepted all four, who have no criminal records, were gardeners and were acting under instruction of others. They will all be deported once they have served the prison sentences.
Mr Herrmann told the court police forced entry to the building after they received information it was being used to grow cannabis and added: "They immediately recognised it to contain a very large scale cannabis farm, over three floors of the building.
"It was a highly professional and sophisticated set up, the electricity had been bypassed, there were multiple growing areas and separate living areas.
"It is not said by the Crown that these defendants were responsible for setting up the farm." He added: "This is the largest cannabis grow to have been discovered in the Northumbria Police force area."
Judge Sarah Mallett said it was a "very large scale, professional operation" and "significant commercial enterprise".
The judge told the the men: "You were all working in the role of gardeners or equivalent, under direction and with little or no financial benefit.
"However, each of you must have had an understanding of the role of scale of the operation as a whole."
The court heard the defendants had travelled to the UK in the hope of finding work.
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