A VIETNAMESE man who farmed more than a thousand cannabis plants worth over £800,000 in a quiet street has been jailed for five years.
Vuong Nguyen was already on bail for running another cannabis factory in Essex when he was arrested at a house in Boston Street, Halifax, on September 12 last year.
Police who raided the two-storey house above a shop following a tip-off found 373 plants in three rooms, and then another 715 plants and seedlings in two other rooms in what Bradford Crown Court heard was “a continuous crop”.
The wholesale value of each grow was said to be between £175,000 and £246,000, with a street-level value of £410,000 – around £820,000 in total.
The court heard that Nguyen, 46, who appeared via video link from HMP Leeds, was on bail after having been arrested on September 21, 2021 as he approached an address in Ilford, Essex, which was the site of a cannabis farm containing 186 young plants with a street value of around £100,000.
Two years later he was arrested in Halifax. Nguyen told police he had been working in Birmingham when he was offered work in Halifax, which involved feeding and watering cannabis plants for a fee of between £30 and £45 a day.
He admitted he knew the work was illegal but agreed to do it. He also claimed he was not allowed to leave the premises despite having keys to the property.
He had previously pleaded guilty to producing controlled Class B drugs at both addresses.
Mrs Recorder Taryn Turner described the Halifax operation as “an organised well-established cannabis production site on a commercial scale” and that it was “well-run and well-planned”.
She added that Nguyen had been trafficked into the UK and that on arrival from Vietnam a few weeks prior to his first arrest in 2021, he had done what he had been told to do.
However, she said he had gone into the cannabis operation “with your eyes open” and that there was “a significant cannabis grow at both properties” in Halifax and Ilford.
She jailed Nguyen for five years for the Halifax factory, with a further 40 months for the Ilford grow to be served concurrently.
She said he should expect to be released no later than the halfway stage of the sentence and then be deported back to Vietnam.
She also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs and paraphernalia found at the Boston Street address.
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