Twenty-one members of a Vietnamese organised-crime network were sentenced for an industrial-scale cannabis conspiracy across south Wales and beyond.[1][2] The gang was uncovered after South Wales Police’s Force Intelligence and Organised Crime Unit investigated a cannabis factory in the Cynon Valley, which led officers to dozens of other factories and stores.[1][2]
Officers seized 2.5 tonnes of cannabis with a street value of about £6 million, alongside £23,000 in cash and other assets.[1][2] The investigation, Operation Violet Panama, saw the South Wales, Gwent and Dyfed-Powys forces with the National Crime Agency and the Border Agency raid 19 addresses in November 2017.[1][2] Beyond the first 15 factories, officers linked more than 30 further factories and storage sites to the gang, reaching as far as Coventry.[1]
At Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, 19 of 23 defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce cannabis, two were convicted by a jury and two were acquitted.[1][2] Ringleader Bang Xuan Luong, 44, who ran the network from a five-bedroom home in Aberdare where pots of £50 notes were found, was jailed for eight years.[1][2] His partner Vu Thi Thu Thuy received six years and Tuan Anh Pham, who arranged properties and their upkeep, received five years.[1] One defendant who first claimed to be 14 was proved to be 26 and was jailed for four years and ten months for production and perverting justice.[1] Police said much of the expected £25 million proceeds had been sent back to Vietnam.[1][2]
