Two men jailed 32 months over 903-plant cannabis farm in Swansea restaurant
Aleksander Cela, 26, and Dennis Horeshka, 30, were each jailed for 32 months at Swansea Crown Court after admitting producing cannabis at a farm of 903 plants in a former restaurant and bar on The Strand in Swansea city centre. Police found the plants across three floors in a raid on 8 May 2025; WalesOnline reported their potential value at up to £395,000.
🇬🇧 12 The Strand, Swansea city centre · United Kingdom
South Wales Police officers arrested Aleksander Cela, 26, and Dennis Horeshka,
30, both of no fixed abode, after a search warrant at a building on The Strand
in Swansea city centre on 8 May 2025.[1]The raid uncovered a cannabis
cultivation of more than 900 plants.[1]At Swansea Crown Court on 29 June 2025
both men were sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to
producing Class B drugs.[2]
Police and the court put the number of plants at 903, found across three floors
of the former Meatery and Martini restaurant at 12 The Strand and a neighbouring
disused bar, with a hole knocked through between the two premises.[2]WalesOnline reported the plants had a potential value of up to £395,000.[2]Judge Huw Rees found the men were not being held against their will and had
food, phones, money and relative freedom of movement, and said deportation was a
matter for the Home Office.[2]
Sergeant Craig Evans of South Wales Police said the proceeds of dealing cannabis
go towards other illegal and more serious activities, and that the Strand
building was highly unsafe and had to be made secure before officers could
remove the plants and equipment.[1]
Swansea Bay News reported that both men were jailed after pleading guilty to
producing Class B drugs.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The police statement gives only “in excess of 900 plants”; the figure of 903 plants and the £395,000 value come from WalesOnline's account of the sentencing and are used here.
The police statement names no court or sentencing date; WalesOnline's 29 June 2025 report of the sentencing is used for that date.
WalesOnline's headline values the farm at £400,000 while its text says up to £395,000; the report uses £395,000.
No weight of harvested cannabis was published, and the plants are counted only as plants.
The wider organised crime group behind the farm was not identified in the reports.
Whether either man will be deported was left to the Home Office and no outcome was reported.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in WalesOnline: The two men, both Albanian nationals, had paid people smugglers to reach the UK and were in debt to those who organised the farm, whose organisers remain unidentified.
Callum Roper, 22, of Holton Road, Barry, was jailed for 30 months at Cardiff Crown Court after admitting offences involving the supply of cannabis and magic mushrooms. He pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of both drugs between 3 December 2025 and 14 September 2026 and had been remanded in custody awaiting sentence.
Bolton Crown Court sentenced seven members of three linked drug gangs that trafficked cocaine and cannabis between Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and North Wales. Five men received prison sentences of up to eleven and a half years, while two couriers received community orders and two leaders await later sentencing.
Daniel Thompson, 36, was found with 8,223.6 grams of cannabis resin, valued at up to £35,950, when officers searched a house on Moss Side Lane in Rixton in July 2023. Chester Crown Court gave him a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months and 100 hours of unpaid work after he admitted possessing the resin with intent to supply and possessing cocaine.
Sentenced 1Cannabis 8.2236 kgPrison 9 months suspended for 12 months
Bradford Crown Court jailed Alfie Leahy, 21, for five years and Connor Broadbent, 26, for three years and four months over drugs found when police raided two homes in the Holmewood area at dawn on 17 July 2026. Cannabis was seized at a Grayswood Crescent address and cocaine, cash and jewellery at Dawson Street; police put the total street value of the drugs at more than £22,000.
Charged 2Prison 5 years (Leahy); 3 years and 4 months (Broadbent)
