A huge cannabis farm in a disused textile mill in Halifax that was raided by police contained more than 5,000 plants with an anticipated street value of between £2.4m and £2.8m

Three Albanian nationals found living and working illegally at the former Carlton Works on Savile Park Road, and who were arrested at the scene on November 30, 2023, have each been jailed for 45 months after pleading guilty to producing a controlled Class B drug.

Sentencing Ronaldo Pasha, 24, Elvis Shira, 33, and Bledar Zeqo, 40, at Bradford Crown Court, Mr Recorder Paul Reid said they were responsible for running “an extremely sophisticated set-up designed for the production of cannabis on an industrial scale”.

Prosecutor Jordan Millican said the trio was caught after being spotted by drone and attempting to escape across a glass roof and down a fire escape.

Inside the factory officers found 18 grow rooms with 15 containing cannabis plants in various stages of growth.

Most contained between 150 and 200 plants, but the two largest rooms held 1,044 and 1,872 plants respectively.

The total number of cannabis plants found on the premises was 5,105, yielding 281kg of the drug.

Police also discovered a large amount of equipment including fans, carbon filters, ducting, lighting, complex electrics, and water systems as well as harvesting equipment and vacuum sealed bags that showed evidence of knowledge of onward supply.

The court heard that Pasha had paid £10,000 to travel to the UK in 2023 by boat. He claimed he had been forced to work in the cannabis farm to repay the debt after he and his family in Albania had been threatened, and that his limited role was to water plants.

Shira had worked at the cannabis farm for a month and had been promised between £4,000 and £6,000 for the work he was doing. He was not forced to work and could leave at any time. He was “relatively happy”.

Zeqo replied “no comment” to the majority of questions asked in his police interview but revealed he had travelled to the UK from Albania in August 2023 and was in debt.

The court heard that Shira and Zeqo had no previous convictions, but Pasha had previously been jailed in 2022 for producing a Class B drug.

Barristers for Pasha, Shira and Zeqo said all three men were in effect “gardeners” used to water the cannabis plants and that they were at the bottom of the ladder when it came to the size and scope of the drugs operation.

Sentencing the three men Recorder Reid said the cannabis factory was an “organised commercial illegal grow” with an “enormous projected yield” of over two-and-three-quarter million pounds that justified the financial outlay on the equipment that was found.

He added: “It is sad and somewhat surprising that there still people travelling from Albania thinking that they are going to be able to make substantial amounts of money in this country through the production of illegal drugs and, in some instances, the sale of illegal drugs.

“The substantial prison sentences that are imposed for this do not appear to have deterred people such as yourselves.

“It is submitted on behalf of each of you that you are just gardeners operating under instruction, [and] exploited. I am satisfied as far as I can be that that is almost undoubtedly the case.”

He jailed all three men for 45 months each, or three years and nine months, and that they be recommended for deportation on release.

He ordered that the cannabis plants should be destroyed, and the equipment to produce them to be forfeited and disposed of.