Man trafficked by ‘mafia’ to set up Bradford cannabis factory

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC An illegal immigrant trafficked to Bradford by “mafia” to set up a £60,000 cannabis factory has been jailed for eight months.
Dat Van Tran travelled from Vietnam to West Yorkshire hidden in the back of lorries because he believed Bradford was “a land of gold,” his lawyer said.

Tran, 27, was on the run for more than four years and had begun a new life in Derbyshire with a wife and child when he was arrested in June this year, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.
He was convicted of being concerned in the production of cannabis in February 2008.

Prosecutor John Bull said he was linked by fingerprint evidence on a fusebox and DNA on a cigarette stub to a cannabis factory at a house in Horton Grange Road.

Police raided the four-bedroom terraced property after reports of a burglary and seized 429 cannabis plants from five rooms.

Tran told the jury he paid to be smuggled into the UK by handing over his late parents’ home in a poor area of Vietnam.

He flew to Russia and travelled overland to this country with other Vietnamese people, hidden in boxes in the back of trucks. He was picked up, taken to the house in Bradford and ordered to set up the cannabis factory.

Tran, speaking through an interpreter, said he did not know what the plants were.

When he asked his bosses, he was told: “You don’t need to know these things.”

He thought they were “medicinal plants” and when he found out the truth, he escaped from the house out of a window.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Tran was trafficked to Bradford by “mafia”.

“You were fooled into coming to this country thinking it was wonderful,”the judge said. “You worked with a will to set up a very substantial cannabis factory. You were playing a not insignificant role in the installation and running of this operation.”

Judge Durham Hall added: “There are thousands of cannabis farms and factories. They are being detected at the rate of dozens every week. The police are very active in discovering them in this area.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Police say Mexican Mafia prison gang led crime ring in Ventura County

Image
A 39-year-old man in an out-of-state prison directed a crime ring in Ventura County that forced competing gangs to work together and funneled money back to the Mexican Mafia prison gang, authorities said Tuesday. Martin Madrigal was among 27 people, including two teens, who were indicted and accused of crimes such as conspiring to commit assault, extortion, home invasion , robbery and drug trafficking , Ventura County sheriff's and district attorney's officials said at a news conference. All but two have been arrested, and at least 16 more are expected to be indicted, officials said. The suspects are largely members of local gangs who worked with the Mexican Mafia , authorities said. "These are hard-core criminal gang members. They wake up every day and try to decide where they're going to commit crimes ," Sheriff Geoff Dean said at the news conference. Authorities have seized 32 weapons , $36,000 in cash and a quarter-pound of heroin, off
Read more

Porn mafia now targets students

Image
The porn mafia seems to have acquired a fresh and new market. It’s none other than higher secondary, high school and upper primary students of city schools .   Obscene and vulgar video clips are transferred to the mobile phones of these students through bluetooth , say special branch cops. The sources said a large number of people were involved in the sleazy business as the police found several instances of the mafia operating near educational institutions . Though most city schools have banned mobile phones on campus, students violate the order and smuggle them in. The porn clips are first transferred from an outsider to a student and they are later shared among others. Sources said internet cafes operating near schools are the supply hubs. The special branch police arrested a few men from Thrippunithura and High Court Junction on Sunday, on charge of providing porn clips to school students . “ Students usually give their mobiles to the s
Read more

A Mafia Boss Has Been Arrested in Uruguay After 23 Years on the Run

Police in Uruguay have arrested one of Italy's most wanted fugitives — the so-called "cocaine king of Milan"— who had been hiding out in the South American country for more than a decade. Rocco Morabito, a boss of the Calabria-based Ndrangheta crime group, which controls much of the world's cocaine trade, had been on the run for 23 years in total, the Guardian reports. He is subject to a 30-year prison sentence in Italy after attempting to smuggle almost a tonne of cocaine into the country from Brazil in the 1990s. Morabito's arrest at a luxury Montevideo hotel on Monday follows a six-month investigation by Uruguayan police, who were reportedly alerted to his presence when he registered his daughter at a local school using his real name instead of an alias. Italian and Uruguayan authorities cited by the Guardian said that Morabito, 50, had long been living in Uruguay's southern coastal resort of Punta del Esta under an assumed identity. He is thought
Read more