Seven men were jailed at Manchester Crown Court on 19 July 2019 for a conspiracy that imported 2.5 tonnes of cannabis worth more than £15 million from Spain into Britain.[1] Scott Byrne, 32, of Westhoughton was found guilty of importing cannabis and sentenced to 13 years, and Tony Cadman, 32, of Widnes was found guilty of the same charge and sentenced to 12 years.[1] Michael Lawlor, 49, of Bolton and Wesley Kinsella, 31, of Bolton each received nine years, Lee Jackson, 38, of Wirral nine years and four months, and Michael Moore, 30, and Michael Harley, 35, both of Bog Farm in Eryrys near Mold, two years and nine months each for industrial-scale production.[1]
Between July and November 2017 seven deliveries arrived through Dover disguised as oven filters for a kitchen firm that did not exist, at an address that turned out to be lock-up units behind a convenience store in Lowton.[1] Between September 2017 and August 2018 six more consignments came through Dover with cannabis packed among pallets of lettuce and peppers.[1] Officers stopped the sixth delivery at Dover on 12 August 2018 and found 177 kilos of cannabis with a street value of more than £1.5 million.[1]
A raid on the Lowton unit owned by Cadman led police to Lawlor, Kinsella and a second lock-up at Hartford Works in Bolton, where officers found a stolen Mercedes containing £20,000 worth of cannabis, which in turn led them to Jackson and Byrne.[1] Enquiries at legitimate storage firms showed consignments were bound for Bog Farm in North Wales, where police raided a concealed underground bunker built from buried storage containers to grow cannabis; Harley admitted it had been built three years earlier but said production stopped soon after because it was too wet.[1]
