Illegal Albanian immigrant, 22, faces deportation after Blackpool cannabis farm raid
An Albanian man employed as a ‘gardener’ at a cannabis factory in Blackpool could now face deportation as an illegal immigrant.
Even though Indri Lumci was only given a nine-month prison sentence at Preston Crown Court for his role in a ‘professional’ drugs operation in the resort – below the 12-month threshold for automatic removal from the UK – a judge said it would still be up to the Home Office or the immigration services to decide if he should be sent home.
The 22-year-old, who was said to have entered the UK without papers, pleaded guilty to possessing £31,000 worth of cannabis with intent to supply.
The court was told that because he would only serve less than half of his nine-month sentence in prison and had already spent five months locked up on remand, he will be released immediately.
Barrister Hanifa Patel, prosecuting, said police raided a house in Loftos Avenue, Blackpool. They had to force entry to the property after Lumci refused to let them in.
Officers had looked through the windows and spotted two large dogs in the kitchen and Lumci sitting on the couch in the lounge with another dog.
When police demanded to be let in he disappeared upstairs. When they broke in and searched the property they found him hiding in the attic.
The house, she said, was “clearly a cannabis farm” with three bedrooms filled with plants under cultivation in a sophisticated growing operation. The premises were in “extreme disrepair” with debris strewn everywhere.
It was a “professional set-up" with filters, lighting and fans. On the coffee table downstairs police found a Rambo-style knife, a baton and the keys to a Honda car outside the property in which officers discovered more than £4,000 worth of cannabis in 20 bags. In total experts estimated the cannabis haul to have a street value of more than £31,000.
The prosecution assessed Lumci’s role as a lesser one. “He was essentially the gardener,” said Ms Patel. The operation, she added, had been capable of producing significant quantities of cannabis for commercial use.
Tanya Elahi, for Lumci, said her client had come to the UK in 2023 hoping to find work and “have a positive and productive lifestyle”. He believed he would be getting a job in construction but instead found himself looking after a cannabis farm.
“Once he arrived at the address he knew what he was doing was illegal,” she said. “But simply he had no (other) place to go.”
It was out of character for him and had now said he just wants to leave it all behind him and go back home to Albania.
Recorder Jeremy Lasker said Lumci’s role had been to tend the cannabis plants and to “safeguard what was a valuable commodity”.
He said that from photographs of the property there were weapons present in the form of knives.
“You entered this country having come from Albania some two years ago,” he said. “As understand it you have no papers and you were not entitled to work.
“It could be said that you were looking for work on the black market.” But he added that many illegal immigrants who came here and were unable to find work did not resort to criminal activity.
“You chose to do so. You took the risk and you must now pay the penalty.
“What the Home Office or the immigration services seek to do to you is plainly a matter for them. But it would have been wrong for me to impose a longer sentence simply to ensure your removal from this country.”