A MAN was caught growing 505 cannabis plants with a potential street value of £250,000 at a house in a residential street.

Indrit Spata was taken to the property on Caldicot’s Longfellow Road to tend to the crop after arriving in the UK illegally from his native Albania.

The house had been insulated and its upstairs transformed into a “very sophisticated” cannabis factory, prosecutor Hannah Friedman said.

Spata, 23, was found with “high value” jeans, trainers and sunglasses, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

South Wales Argus: Indrit Spata

Indrit Spata

He had also been furnished with a PlayStation and TV and had lived there for a few weeks before being arrested by Gwent Police last year.

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Miss Friedman added: “The defendant played a significant role in the operation.

“There was also some awareness of its scale.”

He pleaded guilty to producing cannabis between October 21, 2023 and November 23, 2023.

Spata had no previous convictions.

South Wales Argus:

The 505 cannabis plants were being grown upstairs

Dominic Bardill representing Spata said: “There was a degree of immaturity and naivety.

“He wasn’t running the operation but he accepts what he has done is wrong and he is remorseful.”

Mr Bardill told the judge his client had wanted to make money to help his family at home raise money to pay for a headstone for his late uncle.

Spata was, he added, a “kind-hearted and polite” young man who was learning English in prison.

Recorder David Elias KC told the defendant: “You were found in the property where you had been taken to take care of a commercially sized operation to grow cannabis plants.

“The house was nothing to do with you as you were not the person who had rented or leased it.

“There were 505 plants upstairs and care had been taken to insulate the rooms.

“You were brought in to be the gardener and you were watering the plants and tending to them.”

Spata was jailed for 27 months and told he would serve half of that term in custody.

There was no application under the Proceeds of Crime Act and the defendant was ordered to pay a £228 victim surcharge.