CANNABIS FARM RUN FROM HOME

AN ILLEGAL immigrant who fronted a huge super-strength cannabis
factory in Sheffield has been jailed and warned he will be kicked out
of the country. Vietnamese-born Mudi Nguyen was arrested after police
raided a house in Staniforth Road, Darnall, and discovered 1,250
plants with a total street value of UKP150,000.

Each room had been furnished with industrial lighting equipment and
extractor units, as well as dehumidifiers and a watering pump. The
walls had also been covered in silver foil to increase the
temperature, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Nguyen, who arrived in the UK on a lorry in 2004, said he had been
paid UKP50 a week by a fellow Vietnamese criminal to act as a gardener
for the high strength skunk cannabis.

Judge Roger Keen QC jailed the 30-year-old for two-and-a-half years
and recommended he should be deported at the end of the prison
sentence. The judge said: "You played a part, albeit a small part, in
an industrial sized cannabis farm. This was serious offending. "You
came here illegally in 2004 and there is no evidence you have done
anything worthwhile. You have not contributed to this country at all,
on the contrary, you have resorted to crime.

"It is my judgement that your presence here is to the detriment of its
citizens." Nguyen told officers he became involved in the enterprise
because he couldn't find legitimate work after losing a finger in a
motorbike accident. Richard Barradell, defending, said: "Somebody is
making a lot of money out of this, but not the defendant. In the
hierarchy of cannabis production in this country, he is nothing more
than a greenhouse man who is being used by someone else."

Nguyen pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis during a four-week
period in November and December last year on the basis he acted as a
gardener of the crop.