A man caught running a drugs farm in a house told police he had left London after being offered a better paid job – which turned out to be cannabis production.
Vietnamese Minh Van Nguyen, 26, who left his wife behind in London, said he only realised he was a cannabis gardener when he opened the front door.
Three months later, police raided the address in Hartlepool town centre and found 196 plants worth £107,800 in four rooms.
Prosecutor Emma Atkinson told Teesside Crown Court that officers discovered there was also a cannabis farm in the house next door on Tankerville Street.
Van Nguyen said he knew about the other farm, and that he received his instructions on watering from another Vietnamese man.
The set-up in his house included protective sheeting, watering and a by-passed electricity supply.
Van Nguyen said he used his wages to pay for medication for a heart complaint because he could not register with a GP because of his residential status.
Matthew Crowe, defending, said: “He was offered more money than his job paid in London, and so he came up to Teesside.
“When he walked through the door, he could see that it was cannabis.
“His role was only to water the plants on the instructions of a Vietnamese man who would attend the house. He did not know anyone else in the chain of the operation.
“He knew that there was something else next door, but they were cut off from one another.
“He realises he did it for financial gain, but that was as a result of medical and immigration problems. He was supposed to be paid after the crop was harvested, but that money never materialised.”
Van Nguyen, of Tankerville Street, Hartlepool, wept as he was jailed for eight months over a courtroom videolink from Holme House Prison in Stockton, after he pleaded guilty to production of cannabis on May 3.
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