Black Country cannabis factory fixer jailed
A man who was paid up to £3,000-a-time to rent houses in the Black Country, so a drug gang could turn them into skunk cannabis factories, has been jailed.
Mazhar Pathan used a false name, forged documents and cash provided by the gang when dealing with landlords and rented a further property for them in Derby, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
Houses involved in the racket were at Grosvenor Street, Heath Town, Church Street, Halesowen and Dudley Road, Warley.
Pathan from Bescot Road, Walsall, who had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the production of cannabis and money laundering and was jailed for two years eight months.
See also: Cannabis grown to save money, court told.
Mr Mark Phillips, prosecuting, revealed: "The production at the four properties involved the growing of up to 800 plants with a potential crop of 44 kilograms of skunk cannabis."
The 28-year-old 'fixer,' posing as Mohammed Ali, paid five months of the £500-a-month rent in advance on the Heath Town address in August 2012, it was said. Police found it had been converted into a drug factory with 21 heat lamps and 70 plants when it was raided the following December.
The defendant forked out £1,100 cash in May 2013 to rent the property in Halesowen which had 152 plants under cultivation in three rooms when officers swooped three months later, the court was told.
See also: Men who kept £70k drug factory jailed.
A Vietnamese 'gardener' was also discovered tending the crop at the house and was subsequently jailed for 18 months, said Mr Phillips.
The blunder that cost Pathan his liberty involved the premises in Warley which had been transformed into a 312-plant cannabis factory, it was said.
When an attempt was made to break into the property – a move possibly made by a rival gang – he reported the suspected burglary to police using his own mobile phone.
After officers discovered the drug factory they checked with the agent handling the address and discovered it had been rented to a man with the same number.
Inquiries revealed that neighbours had seen a man with a Mazda sports car, just like Pathan's, arriving and leaving the property. He was tracked down and arrested in December last year and confessed to looking for easy money to pay off debts.
Mr Jasvir Mann, defending, explained: "He had taken out a loan to build an extension to his home when getting a good salary at a job with a telecommunications company. He then had a big drop in earnings when he was made redundant and could only find alternative work at a supermarket earning in a month what he had previously picked up a week."
The lawyer added: "He found himself in a fix and acted wholly out of character. The offence was financially driven. He was being paid up to £3,000 to rent the property but had nothing to do with the growing of the cannabis. The documentation and money used to rent the addresses was given to him by those behind the operation."
Recorder Geoffrey Kelly told him: "You had a crucial role. The criminal enterprise could not have operated without the properties provided by you. It was drug production on a very significant, although not industrial, scale."
