THIS police video footage shows how a house on a residential street was transformed into a cannabis factory with a potential £250,000 crop.

It was played during the sentencing of Indrit Spata, 23, who was jailed for growing 505 plants at the property on Caldicot’s Longfellow Road.

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

Spata had been sent from London by a criminal gang to work there as a gardener after arriving in the UK illegally in the back of a lorry from Albania.

South Wales Argus: Indrit Spata

Indrit Spata

The 23-year-old was found with “high value” jeans, trainers and sunglasses, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

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

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

He had no previous convictions.

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.”

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 sent to prison for 27 months and ordered to pay a £228 victim surcharge.

The footage was provided by CPS Wales.