TWO Albanian illegal immigrants have been jailed for running a massive cannabis factory near Wellington which had the potential to produce £412,000 of drugs.

Orgito Asllanaj and Koi Cunaj were caught tending 491 plants when police smashed their way through a reinforced steel door to get into a business unit on Greenham Business Park.

The entire building had been turned into seven growing rooms and a drying room. The high-tech set up had lining on the walls, ducting, heating, lights, fans and electrical kit, including transformers.

The cannabis plants were at three stages of growth to create a continuous production line capable of growing from 13 to 41kg of skunk cannabis every few months.

The two Albanians were living on site among the plants after being transported to Devon by a gang who found them living rough and doing odd jobs in London.

Asllanaj, 29, and Cunaj, 43, both of no fixed abode, admitted production of cannabis and were both jailed for a year by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.

They will both be deported as illegal immigrants when they finish their sentences.

The judge told them: “You were offered work and given instructions in how to act as gardeners in a sophisticated, commercially-sized cannabis grow which took up an entire industrial unit.

“It is clear this was a very professional and large-scale set up with a significant outlay on heating, lighting, ducting, lining, fans, fertiliser and so on.

“You would not have had any influence on those above you in the operation but I don’t accept for one minute that either of you became involved through naivety.”

Emily Pitts, prosecuting, said police acting on intelligence raided the business unit on February 22 this year and discovered a large-scale, commercial operation with sophisticated equipment in seven growing rooms.

The yield would have been between 13 and 41kg with a wholesale value of £55,000 to £165,000 and street value of up to £412,000.

William Parkhill, for Asllanaj, said he had been recruited after his work in the black economy at car washes and building sites dried up, and he needed money to support his elderly parents back in Albania.

He was not in charge of the operation and would not have benefited from the sale of the cannabis.

Rachel Smith, for Cunaj, said he had been homeless in London and agreed to look after the plants in return for nothing more than board and lodging.

He has mental problems which have been exacerbated by being locked up 23 hours a day during lockdown in prison and is desperate to return to his wife and children in Albania.