Man who tried to run from cannabis grow jailed

A man who tried to run away from a cannabis grow when officers knocked on the front door in Stoke-on-Trent has been jailed.

Samjir Hoxha, aged 33, of Birmingham, was inside the building at the time when officers turned up and looked through the letterbox in November last year.

We went there after local people had told us there was a potential cannabis grow inside a building on Princess Road in Hartshill.

When officers got there, Hoxha tried to garden hop away but was quickly detained and arrested at the scene.

Six rooms inside the building were being used to grow cannabis. We found more than 70 plants, 100 growing lamps and a number of extractor fans, as well as dangerous cabling that was being used to power the grow illegal through a bypass.

When he was taken to custody for questioning, Hoxha admitted producing cannabis and was charged with the offence.

He appeared at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Wednesday (6 March) and was sentenced to 15-months in prison.

Sergeant Chris Gifford, from the Stoke-on-Trent North local policing team, said: “This goes to show the type of results we can get from acting on community concerns and dealing with issues as proactively as possible.

“Drug cultivation is often run by sophisticated criminal networks that exploit vulnerable people for profit. We want to make it clear that we won’t tolerate it and we’ll pursue those responsible across Staffordshire and act on the concerns of our communities.”