AN Albanian teenager who owed thousands of pounds to people traffickers for getting him into the country on a dinghy has been locked up for 18 months after he was caught at a large cannabis grow. 

Police officers acting on a tip-off from a member of the public raided the house on Clara Street, Huddersfield, on August 24 and spotted Ilirjan Krasniui, 19, on the roof of the property. 

Bradford Crown Court heard that he tried to run off but he was arrested. 

When officers searched the property they found around 200 cannabis plants. 

Recorder Abdul Iqbal KC said some of them were almost ready to be harvested while other young plants were a different crop. 

The electricity supply had been bypassed and the set-up included ventilation, irrigation and watering systems. 

“In short this was a cannabis cultivation system which was designed to maximise the yield of cannabis,” he told Krasniui via an Albanian interpreter. 

“It’s plain it had been going on for some considerable time.” 

Krasniui, who pleaded guilty to production of cannabis, claimed in his basis of plea that he owed three thousand Euros for his illegal passage here. 

He said he was told to work at Clara Street, watering and looking after the plants, but he had only been there two days when the police arrived. 

Krasniui had £440 in cash when he was arrested. 

Recorder Iqbal ordered forfeiture of the money as well as the destruction of all the cannabis plants and equipment. 

He accepted that Krasniui owed money to those who had arranged his illegal entry to the country but he said he had been involved in the offence for financial gain. 

Krasniui will serve his sentence in a young offender institution.