Men jailed over £1m cannabis plot

The men were jailed for between four-and-a-half and 11 years

A gang of cannabis farmers have been jailed for plotting to produce more than £1m worth of the drug.

The men, from Reading, employed illegal Vietnamese immigrants to grow the plants in houses across Middlesbrough.

Rukhsar Bashier, 34, Ajaz Arif, 34, Tanweer Razak, 28, and Piotr Izbicki, 26, were found guilty of conspiracy to produce cannabis.

They were jailed for between four-and-a-half and 11 years at Teesside Crown Court.

The jury heard that Bashier, of The Farthings, Brooker's Hill, Shinfield, paid £600,000 for four semi-detached houses in Middlesbrough.

Three of those, in Thorntree and Acklam, were just weeks from producing their first cannabis crop when police raided the houses.

Judge Michael Taylor said: "The turnover would be in excess of £1m and it is obvious to me by the amount of money that was put up front that it was intended to be a national scale production."

Bashier and Razak, of Elm Park, Reading, were each jailed for 11 years.

Izbicki and Arif, both of Basingstoke Road, were given terms of six and four-and-a-half years respectively.

In May, four Vietnamese immigrants were jailed for up to three years for their work on the farms.