£7m drug farm haul

A LETTINGS manager used properties he was looking after to farm £7million worth of cannabis.

Robert Zielinski, 52, grew “industrial quantities” of the drug over two and a half years.

He fobbed off landlords and even changed locks and also falsely claimed £47,000 benefits, Liverpool crown court heard. Zielinski, of the city’s Kensington area, got eight years’ jail for conspiracy to produce cannabis.

He admitted benefits fraud. Judge Anil Murray said: “The operation was capable of producing industrial quantities of cannabis... you clearly occupied a lead role.”