Police found a sophisticated cannabis-growing operation in a large house in a Welsh town which could have been worth up to a £250,000 to the London-based gang running it, a court has heard. When officers swooped on the property they found 123 large plants growing in six rooms of the detached property along with a lighting and ventilation system and a further 169 seedlings being propagated in trays. Outside the house was a BMW car which the cannabis gang was using to ferry supplies across the border.
Two Albanian nationals were also found at the house and Swansea Crown Court heard one of them was introduced to the gang running the operation while he was working at a car wash while the other had entered the UK via a small boat crossing of the English Channel.
Brian Simpson, prosecuting, said on November 24 last year police executed a search warrant at a large isolated detached house in Llanbadarn near Aberystwyth. In the house were two men – Elidon Zeka and Morin Lalaj. The court heard officers found six room of the house had been given over to the growing of cannabis with insulation boards over the windows, plastic sheeting on the floors, and lights, fans, and a ventilation system. A total of 123 large young plants were found with another 169 seedlings growing in trays and propagators in the kitchen. The electricity meter to the property had been bypassed. Lalaj's fingerprints were later found on the fridge in the house and on a number of dehumidifiers.
The court heard police estimated that the potential yield of the crop was more than £255,000 and that since the house had been purchased in the February of that year two other such crops could have been grown and harvested. Mr Simpson said the defendants, both aged 22, were arrested and searched and Zeka was found to be in possession of £365 cash. Outside the house was a BMW which subsequent inquiries showed had made eight journeys from London to Aberystwyth since April 2022, staying in the Welsh town for between 50 minutes and six and a half hours on each occasion before returning. The prosecutor said it was the Crown's case that the BMW, and another car which police had seized nearby a week earlier and which had made 24 trips to west Wales, were being used to deliver supplies to the cannabis growing operation.
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In their interviews Zeka answered "no comment" to all questions asked while Lalaj said he had been at the house for around three weeks following his release from an immigration centre. He said he was expecting to be paid £2,600 for a month's work tending the plants and that people would come to the house to drop off food for him.
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Elidon Zeka, of Edinburgh Road, Walthamstow, London, and Morin Lalaj, of no fixed abode, had both previously pleaded guilty to producing cannabis when they appeared in the dock for sentencing. Zeka had also previously pleaded guilty to possession of criminal property namely the cash found on him. Neither has any previous convictions.
Dan Griffths for Zeka, said the defendant had travelled to the UK 17 months ago as an economic migrant seeking work. He said after periods working as a waiter in a restaurant and as a labourer on construction projects he had latterly found work at a car wash and it was at this job that he had been introduced "to those involved in the management" of the Aberystwyth cannabis operation. The advocate said that on the first journey to Wales Zeka had not realised the items he was transporting were for a criminal enterprise but when he got to Aberystwyth "his eyes were opened" to what was going on. From then on he had continued to make the trips, for which he was paid £40 or £50 a time, in the knowledge of their purpose. He added that his client had been candid in his admissions that he had not been preyed upon or pressurised into being involved in the operation.
Dyfed Thomas, for Lalaj, his client had owned a small holding in Albania but had run up debt to the tune of 15,000 euros to loan sharks and had fled abroad after threats were made to his life. He said the defendant had crossed the English Channel in one of the small boats that were often seen on the news and he said Lalaj also did not claim to have been forced into working in the Aberystwyth house.
Recorder Simon Hughes said Lalaj had been working in the property cultivating the plants while Zeka had been driving equipment and drugs to the premises and both men had been aware of the nature of the work and of its illegality. Following the sentencing guidelines and with a one-third discount for his guilty plea Lalaj was sentenced to 29 weeks in prison. With a one-quarter discount for his pleas, which were entered at a later stage, Zeka was sentenced to 30 weeks in custody. Both defendants will serve up to half their respective sentences in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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