Teenage immigrant smuggled into UK on a lorry caught tending to £600,000 drugs farm at Leeds flat

Police officers raided the property on Brudenell Grove in the Hyde Park area on October 20 and found three rooms filled with plants and growing equipment. The electricity had also been bypassed.

Forcing entry, the officers found 18-year-old Ervin Duka in the house which had the kitchen area turned into a living space.

Leeds Crown Court heard there were 120 plants across two rooms, and 156 seedlings in the third room.

The potential value from the current crop was £150,000, with the capability of four crops a year.

Duka told officers he had been brought to the UK in a lorry from Belgium two months before the raid and had borrowed money from traffickers.

He says he was then put to work tending to the cannabis operation which was already set up on his arrival. He told them they also threatened his family in Albania if he did not comply.

He was told he would be paid £800 a month but never received any money.

Appearing in court via video link from HMP Doncaster, he admitted a charge of producing cannabis and dishonestly using a quantity of electricity.

Mitigating, James Littlehales said: “He is finding it very difficult in prison, he speaks no English and he just wants to return to Albania as soon as possible.”

Judge Christopher Batty gave Duka 10 months’ jail.