Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jailed Ngog Toan Vu, 54, and Thang Nguen Van, 46, for two and a half years each for cultivating cannabis at a warehouse on Ballymount Drive in Dublin.[1] Both men had pleaded guilty to one count of cultivating cannabis without a licence at the unit on 10 May 2017.[1][2] Judge Martin Nolan backdated the terms to that May, when both were taken into custody, and said he considered them desperate men of low moral culpability who had little or no option but to take part.[1]
Gardaí had searched the warehouse that May on a confidential tip-off and found a highly sophisticated operation: six grow rooms holding 1,469 cannabis plants with lighting, heating and ventilation, plus a 31kg vat of harvested cannabis.[1][2] The court put the street value of the drugs at €1.795 million.[1][2] Officers also found a small living area with two beds, a television and laptops, and arrested both men at the scene.[1][2] In interviews they admitted cultivating the cannabis and said they were paid €400 a fortnight.[1][2]
Smuggled labour
Vu said he had paid a Chinese man to travel from Vietnam to Ireland in a shipping container, was taken straight to the growhouse, and had lived there for seven weeks believing he would work on a farm.[1][2] He said a criminal gang had forced him to leave Vietnam by compulsorily buying his barber shop, that his documents were taken on arrival, and that the warehouse was monitored.[1] Van, a chef, said he had been in Ireland only three days and thought he would work in a kitchen; he had previous convictions in Britain for theft, shoplifting and motoring and document offences, and owed a gambling debt of about €7,000 in Vietnam.[1][2]
Sentencing had been adjourned that December so investigators could examine whether the men were human-trafficking victims, and both cooperated in trying to identify the alleged traffickers.[1][2] When the case returned, the prosecution said the inquiry had concluded neither man was a victim of trafficking.[1] Because both men are in Ireland illegally, they will most likely be deported on release.[1]
