Teenager locked up over £100,000 Smethwick drug farm

Illegal immigrant Chu Trung had only been at the address for ten days when police swooped, a judge heard yesterday.

The 19-year-old Vietnamese had been smuggled into the country on a lorry before being taken to a Birmingham night club where he met the 'boss' who put him in a taxi that took him to the property in Rosehill Road, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Trung was shown how to cultivate the 80 cannabis plants growing in the loft and then left to fend for himself at the house that had little furniture and a small amount of food in the kitchen, explained Miss Samantha Powis, prosecuting.

The drug farm would have produced a crop worth £36,000 in street sales but had a potential annual yield of £108,000 with three harvests a year, concluded the lawyer.

Police found the cannabis while making house- to-house inquiries in the street where people had complained of a strange smell, the court heard.

Officers said the defendant appeared relieved when arrested. His family had re-mortgaged their home in Vietnam to pay 20,000 US dollars after 'recruiters' came to their village offering to find legitimate work for young men in the UK, claimed Mr Shiva Misra, defending, who added: "He has been exploited by others."

Trung of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis and was ordered to be detained in a Young Offenders' Institution by Judge John Warner who told him:

"There was a lot of money to be made from this but I accept the money would have gone to those who seldom appear in the courts but trade on people like you and exploit them for their own benefit."

Trung has applied for political asylum in this country but is likely to deported after his sentence.