Two Albanian men jailed for running a large cannabis farm in Ipswich, UK. Plants and pre-packed cannabis valued at £784,000 found.
Officers discovered 454 cannabis plants there. 195 plants were mature and ready to harvest, and they also found 12kg of pre-packed cannabis. Its street value was about £330,000, while the plants and pre-packed stuff totaled £784,000.
The cannabis grew in ten rooms inside. Police seized 77 fans, 147 bulbs, 33 LED lights, and 140 transformers.
Kledis Zefi, 23, and Llazar Lepuri, 21, were on the roof, where they were destroying their phones. Police used drones to find them up there.
Lepuri entered the UK with a fake passport, arriving at Luton Airport in September 2021. His asylum was refused in May 2023, while Zefi entered the UK illegally by boat back in March 2022. He withdrew his asylum claim in November 2023.
Both Zefi and Lepuri admitted they produced cannabis. Lepuri had a prior conviction for growing cannabis, too. Zefi got 32 months in jail, while Lepuri received a longer sentence: 45 months.
Judge David Pugh called it a “large and sophisticated” operation. Both Zefi and Lepuri are Albanian and were both in the UK illegally.
A councilor, John Cook, was happy they shut it down. He said it was brazen in the town center, where many people walked by the building every day.