Asylum seeker who paid £6,000 to get to UK faces jail for gardening cannabis worth up to £700k
An asylum seeker who paid £6,000 to come to the UK on a small boat from France has been told he faces a significant prison sentence after he admitted being a cannabis gardener in Telford.
Enki Rama, aged 23, from Albania was arrested when police executed a drugs warrant on Thursday in a bedroom at a property in Blakemore, Brookside, in house that had been converted into a major cannabis factory.
Kidderminster Magistrates Court was told on Friday that the 912 cannabis plants throughout the living room, and two bedrooms at the property could have had a street price of between £250,000 and more than £700,000 depending on the yield from the plants.
The three magistrates were told that Rama had a lesser role as a gardener and that two unknown men had been the 'harvesters', visiting every few months. Rama, who followed proceedings with an Albanian-speaking interpreter, had been on the premises for four months.
The court heard that Rama had made an asylum application but it had been rejected and he was in the UK "illegally".
Melanie Winterflood, prosecuting, said the house had its windows and carpets covered with sheeting and a false wall installed with fans and heaters attached to power banks from a bypassed electricity supply. It was made safe, the court was told.
