Illegal immigrants jailed over £1.3m Smethwick cannabis farm
Two Vietnamese men paid to be smuggled into the country illegally and were then rumbled as the gardeners of a Smethwick cannabis farm with drugs worth up to £1.3 million, a court heard.
Ninh Pham and Chien Tran were discovered at the industrial unit on Wattville Road, when firefighters were called out to a blaze.
When they arrived at the blaze on November 5 they found 10 rooms were full of drugs. There was a total of 1,359 plants which could have been worth between £427,000 on the streets if they were sold in bulk, or up to £1.28m if the yield was sold in numerous smaller packages, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday.
The pair, of no fixed address, were linked to the scene by fingerprints dotted around the 'sophisticated' set-up, as well as DNA on a toothbrush, said Mr Kevin Jones, prosecuting. Both pleaded guilty to producing cannabis.
Cautioned
Mr Jones added that the 44-year-old Tran has been cautioned by West Yorkshire Police on May 15 for producing cannabis and had expected to be deported.
Tran was next spotted by the authorities when he was arrested by West Midlands Police on November 5 however. He was jailed for two years yesterday and will now be deported by the Home Office.
Miss Kate Thomas, defending, stressed he had made admissions in interview and he was 'an unsophisticated individual' from a poor fishing village who had to seek illegal work because of his illegal entry into the country.
The court however heard that father-of-three Tran had borrowed 20,000 dollars to pay to be smuggled into the country, and put up his house in Vietnam as security.
Judge Mark Eades said he inferred that as Tran had put his family's home up as security, he must have expected 'some kind of return on his investment' so it was quite a sophisticated crime and deserved a higher sentence than his co-accused. Pham, 62, who was of previous good character, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 months. He will also now be deported. Passing sentence, Judge Eades told the defendants: "The scale of this was very substantial. There were 10 rooms with nearly 1,500 plants."
