Landlords were left with bills of up to £30,000 after cannabis gangs took over their properties and left them unlivable.

Mirel Neatu, Marius Nedelcu and Seyan Debnath secured homes in Leeds from legitimate landlords under the guise of managing the properties, before allowing organised crime groups to set up cannabis farms, Leeds Crown Court heard.

The property management firms were linked to a wider investigation into 75 cannabis farms in residential properties in and around the Harehills area that produced drugs with a street value of more than £4.5million, reports the BBC.

Cannabis raids

West Yorkshire Police officers seized 7,636 plants, amounting to 458kg of cannabis, in a series of raids in Harehills which began in March 2023.

Neatu, Nedelcu and Debnath pleaded guilty to permitting premises to be used for the production of a controlled drug in relation to some of the properties involved.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said the landlords who trusted the defendants with their properties had been badly let down.

“Many of the landlords were elderly and had these properties for income or as pensions,” he said. “The properties are now unlivable, and the average loss per property was £20,000 to £30,000.”

Neatu, 37, of Brackenwood Drive, Leeds, was jailed for two years and eight months, while Nedulcu, 40, of Signet Square, Coventry, was jailed for two years and four months and Debnath, 48, of Lupton Avenue, Leeds, was handed a 21-month suspended sentence with 300 hours of community service and a curfew.

Inspector Alastair Nicholls said the men had provided properties for organised crime groups producing cannabis on an industrial scale but that the police operation had “dealt a significant blow to this criminal trade that impacts negatively on the local community”.

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