A former professional footballer was caught working as a gardener in a cannabis farm after being smuggled into the UK. When police raided the house in a residential street in Swansea they found the entire property had been given over to producing the drug with the crop being tended by Albanian national Elsion Koka. The potential value of the drugs once harvested was put at around £125,000.
Swansea Crown Court heard Koka had paid a criminal gang a "significant" amount of money to get him into the UK – with part of the journey being undertaken in the boot of a vehicle – and had been expecting to be found work in the construction industry on his arrival. Craig Jones, prosecuting, said on September 5 last year police in Swansea executed a search warrant at a house in Stanley Terrace in the Mount Pleasant area. He said officers forced entry to the property and found two downstairs rooms and four upstairs rooms had been converted to grow cannabis while the electricity meter had been bypassed.
In total police found 289 plants of varying levels of maturity and a force drugs expert estimated the potential yield of the plants could be as much as 24kg with a street value of up to £125,000. Also in the house was the defendant Koka. He was arrested and interviewed and answered "no comment" to all questions asked.
