Immigrant who 'expected to be deported' caught at Leeds house cannabis farm months after London bust

Nikolin Macaj, who is from Albania, was found in the semi-detached property on Latchmere Gardens, West Park, when police and members of Leeds City Council visited the property on March 13 after concerns were raised.

Leeds Crown Court heard that police officers noticed a makeshift curtain on the stairs, which police recognised was a regular sign of a cannabis farm. They found 36-year-old Macaj inside and five of the rooms were filled with plants in “varying states of growth”, prosecutor Matthew Moore-Taylor said.

In total, there were 128 plants, complete with the usual set-up of lights, transformers and timers. The electricity was also bypassed. Macaj gave no comments during his police interview but did say he had been in Leeds for a week and owed £9,000 to gangsters for being trafficked into the country.

He later admitted a charge of producing cannabis. He has one previous conviction, having been convicted in June of last year at South West London Magistrates’ Court for producing cannabis. He received four months’ jail suspended for 12 months, with unpaid work, which he largely failed to complete.

Get the latest headlines, straight to your inbox, with YEP’s free emails

Mitigating, Caroline Abraham said: “His best mitigation is his early guilty plea which was entered at the first available opportunity. He understands it’s inevitable he will receive an immediate custodial sentence.”

She said he came to the UK in 2022 illegally in “search for a better life” but was put to work in the London cannabis farm to pay off his debt. She added: “That job was to look after plants at the address in London. He was brought to Leeds to carry out the same role as before, to act as a gardener. He was not the person who was involved in setting up the cannabis production or who bypassed the electricity.”

She said he did not attend probation appointments after his first conviction because he could not afford the travel costs, and was “under the impression he would be deported”.

Judge Tahir Khan KC told Macaj: “You were managing that cannabis production enterprise and it was a sophisticated operation. I’m satisfied you played a significant role. You were clearly managing this property and had awareness of the scale. Commercial quantities of cannabis were being grown.”

He activated the four-month suspended sentence, and gave him an additional 32 months’ jail.