A man who paid £20,000 to come illegally to Britain became a key player in a £6.5 million cannabis farm brazenly located on busy Kirkcaldy High Street, a court heard.
Petrit Gjuraj,24, was arrested after police caught him at a former branch of WH Smith in Kirkcaldy in 2022.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how officers who searched the three-storey building found a total of 1,330 cannabis plants, which were being grown on every floor.
Workers slept in a small area which consisted of three double mattresses.
The court heard detectives also found a large television which showed live CCTV footage from a camera at the back of the premises, focused on the back door.
The cannabis being grown there could have netted the organised crime group a total of £6,596,800.
Caught on rooftop
On Wednesday, judge Lord Scott heard about the moment police arrested Gjuraj, an Albanian national with an address in Paisley.
Prosecutor Alan Cameron KC said: “Police Scotland received intelligence that cannabis was being cultivated within the three storey, disused premises at 183-187 High Street, Kirkcaldy.
“Police cars arrived at the front and rear of the premises to search them.
“The accused and three other males were seen from the police helicopter, exiting onto the roof of the building via a fire escape and running west along the roof of the adjacent building.
“It became apparent to officers that the males had no means of escape.”
After trying to hide, they were brought down from the roof.
Arrived in UK in lorry
Gjura pled guilty to being concerned in cultivating cannabis at the premises between March and May 2022.
Mr Cameron told the court the accused told police he had paid someone in Albania £20,000 to come to the UK.
“The arrangement was that should he not carry out the work, then his family in Albania would have to sell their property to repay the debt.
“He made his own way to Belgium and then hid in a lorry and by hiding in the lorry was able to enter the UK.
“He worked in London before moving to Scotland, where he worked for two months in the building where he was subsequently found by the police.”
The court was told he had no right to be in the UK and had not been trafficked.
£6.5million yield
The premises – extensively damaged by fire in August 2022 – were set up for “maximum cannabis cultivation”.
Officers say the organised crime group spent £70,000 on cultivation.
Detectives recovered 392 cannabis plants from the ground floor, 740 plants from the first floor and 146 plants from the top floor.
Mr Cameron added: “If the cannabis cultivated was sold in one eighth deals that would amount to approximately 164,920 deals at £40 per deal.
“This would have yielded approximately £6,596,800.”
Remanded pending sentence
Lord Scott remanded the accused in custody ahead of a sentencing hearing next month, after a background report has been prepared.
He said: “A prison sentence is inevitable here.
“This was clearly a vey significant drugs operation carried out on behalf of an organised crime group.
“The agreed narrative tells me that you must have been a person trusted by the serious organised crime group.”
Gjuraj will be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on June 19 2025.
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