Jonny Humphries
BBC News
Criminals used a registered utility company as cover to dig up the streets and supply electricity to cannabis farms on behalf of Albanian gangsters.
Bosses Ross McGinn, from Merseyside, and Andrew Roberts, from Greater Manchester, were among eight men sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court for a conspiracy involving at least 54 locations across England and Wales.
They operated in plain sight between November 2020 and February 2024, posing as legitimate workmen with liveried vans, barriers and signage. They even closed some roads.
McGinn was jailed for five years and four months while Roberts was sentenced to six years after admitting encouraging or assisting the production of cannabis, conspiracy to abstract electricity and conspiracy to steal.
'Slipshod and dangerous'
Both 33-year-old McGinn, of Midway Road in Huyton, and 42-year-old Roberts, of Bell Lane in Wigan, had previously served prison time for drug dealing.The men were directors of a company called Elev8 Civils and Utilities Ltd, which roped in the other conspirators on a job-by-job basis.
They connected disused houses, pubs, shops, a nightclub and, in one case, a disused department store in north Wales, to the electricity grid.
The buildings were later filled with thousands of cannabis plants.
Passing sentence, Judge David Potter said the men had shown "little or no regard to safety".
The court heard the workmanship shown by the gang had been "slipshod" and dangerous in quality.
Prosecutor Henry Riding told the court police had discovered cannabis farms worth about £21m linked to work carried out by the gang.
When police in Wales found two Albanian men hiding in a loft, they were told they had been victims of human trafficking.
The court heard it was only after people in Bangor reported suspicious activity around an abandoned department store on the High Street that the conspiracy began to unravel.
North Wales Police raided the premises on 30 January 2023 and found a huge and sophisticated cannabis farm, with more than 1,000 plants growing in rooms heated by stolen electricity.
A check of CCTV in the area captured a group of men digging up the pavement on High Street.
Fake workmen who dug up roads to power cannabis farms jailed
Police say the gang were paid to supply electricity to a multi-million pound cannabis farms network.
www.bbc.co.uk
Much more here: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/tears-shouts-get-in-men-31148384
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