Albanian, 19, who paid £4,000 to gangsters to be smuggled by boat to the UK was put to work in their cannabis factory, court hears as he is locked up for 15 months

• Albanian, 19, locked up for 15 months for helping run a Kent cannabis factory
• Besmir Sula, a baker by trade, paid gangsters £4,000 to be smuggled to the UK 

An Albanian illegal immigrant, who paid £4,000 to be smuggled into the UK and helped run a cannabis factory, has been locked up for 15 months. 

Besmir Sula was put to work in the cannabis factory of gangsters he paid to enter the UK after initially being intercepted by British authorities.  

Mr Sula was initially held at a detention centre after entering the UK in a raft organised by people-smugglers in October last year.

He was then moved to a Home Office-run hotel, where he was given a phone to allow him to communicate with his family.

Sula was subsequently contacted by the man in his village who he had borrowed the money from to finance his illicit boat trip and was told he had to pay off the debt. 

Pictured: migrants arrive on Dungeness beach in October last year, after being rescued in the English Channel 

READ MORE: You’ll never find me up here copper! Albanian keeps out of the reach of the long arm of the law on roof of cannabis farm house before officer discovers his hiding place and he is caught and jailed

A court heard Etmond Lika, 32, was offered £100 a day to stay at the property. The Albanian paid £4,400 to cross the English Channel via small boat last year.

The 19-year-old was collected from the hotel and driven to a disused building between the rural villages of Cranbrook and Hawkhurst in Kent. 

Upon arrival, he was effectively ‘sealed’ inside the property to act as a gardener for the 500 plants.

He had been there for roughly two months when police discovered the operation on December 29 last year. 

His sentencing hearing at Maidstone Crown Court Kent found ‘significant quantities’ of cannabis, which was adjudged to be ‘for commercial use with a significant financial advantage’.

Sula pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and appeared in the dock assisted by an interpreter.

His barrister, John FitzGerald, said the teenager, who has no previous convictions, had been a victim of ‘organised gangs who exploit people into believing our streets are paved with gold’.

‘He is from a village in Albania – very rural, very small and very poor. He earnt 300 euros a month working all night in a baker’s and took the view he wanted a better life,’ Mr FitzGerald stated, according to Ferrari Press Agency.

‘He borrowed 4,500 euros from a man in Albania to travel to the UK illegally. He got in a boat with others he had never met and arranged by the sort of organised gangs who exploit people into believing our streets are paved with gold.

Pictured: migrants arriving in Dover this week were helped onboard the RNLI Dover Lifeboat after a small boat incident in the Channel 

‘He was picked up from the hotel and taken to this rural spot, in the middle of nowhere, and to this disused building.’ 

Mr FitzGerald said Sula was ‘young, naive’ and a ‘victim of modern-day slavery’. 

Police said the former commercial premises had all of its doors and windows boarded up, apart from a small one on the top floor.

He jumped through the window with a 16-year-old boy once police arrived, but the pair were were found in a neighbouring garden.

Since his arrest, Sula has been in custody, with his barrister urging the court to be ‘merciful’, saying he had ‘done enough’ time behind bars.

Judge Douglas Marks Moore said the task of looking after the cannabis plants was ‘menial but vital’.

‘You came to this country unlawfully on a boat. You had paid a significant amount of money and you were subsequently contacted and left the control of the authority controlling you at that time to be taken to this particular location in a quiet part of Kent,’ he said to Sula.

‘I accept that this establishment was pretty much sealed for you to remain there.

‘There is no doubt this was a commercial operation and well set-up….If you didn’t have gardeners looking after the plants, they would die. While it’s a menial task, it’s an important task.’

He ordered that Sula serve his sentence in a young offenders’ institution. 

The judge said it would be down to the Home Office to decide if he should be reported upon release. 

Prosecutor Eleanor Scott-Davies said police forced their way into Brook House in Cranbrook Road, after they heard a phone ringing and nearby footsteps.

The building was said to contain a vast quantity of cables to abstract electricity, as well as two beds and a fully-stocked fridge.

‘It was a highly professional operation capable of producing significant quantities for commercial use,’ stated Ms Scott-Davies.

‘The prosecution accept he was performing his duties under direction but he must have been aware of the scale of the operation and expectation of significant financial advantage.’

The judge was told the 16-year-old found with Sula pleaded not guilty and will face a youth court trial in June.

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