The Albanian crime gangs flooding Scotland with high strength cannabis are making tens of millions of pounds.
The Daily Record here showcases some of the recent cases that illuminate the red alert now faced by police and security services after former MSP and top drugs intelligence cop Graeme Pearson has warned that the extent of the gangsterism is threatening to destabilise communities.
He has called for energy companies to set up a hotlines top law enforcement agencies, to pass on an early warning for spike in electricity usage – which are essential for big skunk arrests.
One plant can generate as much as £1,000 for the Mr Bigs, who operate from London and other English cities.
They send their own patsies to random Scots towns, where windows are crow-barred open and temporary homes are set up by the Albanian gardeners.
Many of the busts by Police Scotland have found evidence of previous cultivations.
And several of the gardeners have been moved from one cultivation to another, passing on their skills to other Albanians who have been transported to the UK in small boats and in the back of lorries.
Albanian crime boss Ilir Kasa was jailed for eight years in February last year after bringing major cannabis productions to Scotland.
As a Mr Big, Kasa, 52, made a fatal mistake in being caught visiting two farms – one at a former TSB branch on posh Great Western Road, Glasgow, and in a home in Harthill, North Lanarkshire.
Unlike most gangsters who get caught, Kasa was unable to claim he’d been the victim of human trafficking – as he’d already been jailed for cocaine dealing previously.
He was snared in an operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Police Scotland.
The Glasgow property had more than 350 cannabis plants and sophisticated systems for planting, growing and irrigation.
A similar set-up and a further 150 plants were discovered at the Harthill site on West Main Street.
Kasa is thought to have been involved in other operations in the UK that have not yet been rumbled.
NCA experts valued the combined haul of the cannabis at more than £300,000.
Judge Susan Craig said: “It is clear that you have been involved in the drugs business at a serious level, and indeed all of the charges include serious organised crime aggravations.”
In October, Adiol Hila, 37, and Indrit Saraci, 27, were jailed after pleading guilty to drugs offences following the discovery of a £1.7 million cannabis farm in Dundee.
Both men had arrived in the UK in small boats from France after leaving Albania – and were quickly entwined with a sophisticated drugs gang.
Officers searched industrial properties in Lorne Street and Ash Street where approximately 3000 cannabis plants were found in January 2024.
Saraci was sentenced to three years and nine months and Hila got three years and four months when they appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Arber Ketuka, 35, was convicted at Falkirk Sheriff Court last month and will be sentenced next week.
He was caught trying to flee a property on Grahams Road, Falkirk, which, together with the house next to it, had been converted into a large cannabis cultivation centre.
In June, 2023 a meter engineer attended at 63 Grahams Road to make enquiries on behalf of the electricity supplier.
Suspecting that numbers 61a and 63 Grahams Road were being used for criminality, he contacted police.
Every room of the houses, along with the loft space of 61a, had been converted to cultivate cannabis. Extensive ducting, ventilation and lighting was found in each room, as well as equipment for watering and maintenance.
Nearly 200 cannabis plants were growing, some immature, some at the point of flowering, and capable of yielding at least 15 kilos of high quality buds, worth up to £172,800.
Ketuka pleaded guilty to cultivating the drug.
Albanian drug gardener Xhafer Furriku, 65, stayed illegally in the UK to get free NHS dental treatment before joining a gang who set up a £200,000 cannabis farm.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told that Furriku – a retired painter and decorator – had initially travelled to the UK on a legitimate visa to visit his adult sons in Huddersfield.
But he stayed on after the visa ran out in order to take advantage of free dental work on the NHS before travelling to Forfar to help with the cannabis cultivation.
Furriku – who was jailed for three years in August, was part of a gang who took over the abandoned Forfar swimming pool and turned it into a cannabis farm.
Solicitor David Kinloch, defending, told the court: “I am not being humorous, but he said he had extensive dental work to be done and, because he was in the UK, the NHS covered that dental work.”
Furriku, 65, was jailed for three years and ordered to be deported after he admitted tending to the £187,500 cannabis crop at Forfar Swimming Pool on 8 August 2023.
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The gangsters behind the farm built a complex electrical system of wiring, switches and transformers. There were heat lamps on the ceiling and fans attached to the walls. There was a ventilation system in place.
Illegal immigrants Hajri Musa and Gerald Daci were earlier jailed for a total of six years for their role in the swimming pool drug growing scheme.