Two men behind bars after being caught at £9.5m cannabis farm
TWO men are behind bars after being caught at a huge £9.5 million cannabis factory. Orges Rizaj, 28, and Agustin Grembi, 26, were held after police swooped on the converted industrial building in Possilpark, Glasgow, on November 2 last year.
A judge heard how officers uncovered “a very large and sophisticated” set-up consisting of 3000 cannabis plants.
The duo – who had arrived from Albania for a supposedly “better life” – were found to be living in a makeshift bedroom there. Rizaj and Grembi now each face lengthy jail-stints after they pleaded guilty yesterday to being involved in the production of the drug.
They were remanded in custody pending sentencing next month.
The raid occurred at the property in Strathmore Road, Possilpark.
A man known as “Danny” paid a £5000 deposit to rent the building last February. This individual was neither Rizaj nor Grembi.
Police had to use saws to get in after a tip-off about the drug farm.
Prosecutor Euan Cameron told the High Court in Glasgow: “They discovered that the building had been divided into 13 separate growing rooms each transformed for the industrial cultivation of cannabis.”
Specialist lighting had been rigged up as well as a “complex venting system” to try and keep out the stench of cannabis.
A living area had also been added with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
A total of 2924 mature cannabis plants were seized along with several hundred more “seedlings”.
Cameron said: “It would be reasonable to conclude given the nature of the operation ... that the maximum street level value of the entire crop falls between £6.5m and £9.44m.”
Rizaj told police he had been in Scotland for two months.
Both were quizzed about alleged “human trafficking”.
Cameron: “Rizaj said he had come to the UK for a better life and paid 18,000 Euros to those who arranged transport.
“That sum was still outstanding, and he was working to pay it off.”
He denied being forced to remain at the cannabis farm.
A check with the UK Border Agency revealed the pair were in the country illegally.
Rizaj’s lawyer Billy Lavelle said: “He was not being paid anything. He was paying off the transportation [to the UK].”
Lord Mulholland deferred sentencing for reports.
The judge told them: “You knew what you were doing was illegal. You were doing this to pay off a debt which saw you come from where you lived to this country.”