Six people have been convicted of being part of a crime group responsible for forcing trafficked migrants to work in cannabis farms.
A National Crime Agency investigation identified that the ringleader of the gang, convicted people smuggler Mai Van Nguyen, 35, of Beetham Tower, Birmingham, was involved in the operation of a number of cannabis farms mainly throughout the Midlands, London and north of England.
The properties would be leased in other people’s identities using false identity documents or aliases.
He worked with fellow Vietnamese nationals Doung Dinh, 38, from Birmingham, and Nghia Dinh Tran, 24, from Lewisham, London, to exploit migrants by putting them to work.
A trial at Birmingham Crown Court heard how Shamraiz Akhtar and Tasawar Hussain, both 50 and from Birmingham, were taxi drivers who would move migrants around various properties for the gang, being paid hundreds of pounds a time.
On occasion they would also transport cannabis or equipment for the farms.
A sixth member of the gang, Amjad Nawaz, 43, from Birmingham, acted as a middleman, and was in regular conversations with Nguyen about workers, the buying and selling of cannabis, and arranging for properties to be used in Birmingham.
Nguyen, Dinh, Tran, Akhtar, Hussain & Nawaz
Their trial heard from a victim of trafficking, named only as ‘Witness Z’, a Vietnamese national who was exploited by the gang after arriving in the UK by boat in November 2020.
He initially travelled to the UK to pay off money he had borrowed to fund medical treatment for his wife, and was given a phone number to call by his traffickers when he arrived.
After being processed by the immigration authorities was driven from London to Birmingham, before being put to work in a cannabis grow in nearby Tipton, West Midlands.
Witness Z said he had no choice but to work as he was in debt bondage to the people who had transported him to the UK.
Later he was taken to the site of another cannabis grow in Tyseley, Birmingham, where he was forced to help clear up the property. NCA officers would later find messages on Nguyen’s phone from Nawaz, complaining that the landlord was angry about the state it had been left in.
Witness Z was then transported to another cannabis farm at a house in Hartlepool, Teesside. This was raided by Cleveland Police in June 2021 and Witness Z was arrested.
Inside the property officers found a note pinned to a bedroom door saying “take what you want, please don’t hit me, I do not know English”, and a hand-written diary extract from a migrant in which they ask “why did I get beaten up and forced to work?”
Nawaz was arrested by the NCA at his partner’s house in Hall Green on 7 June 2021. Bags of cannabis were found in an upstairs bedroom and outhouse. A series of messages with Nguyen were found on his phone, along with images of cannabis and bundles of cash.
Two days later Tran was arrested at a cannabis grow in Chaddesden, Derby, where dozens of plants and two migrants were also found. Officers also linked Tran to another address in Chad Road, Birmingham, where a further cannabis farm was found.
Hussain was arrested in August 2021 while he was parked outside a property which was found to contain another cannabis grow in East Ham, London. Four Vietnamese migrants were found inside.
Akhtar was initially detained by West Midlands Police officers, who were working with the NCA, in March 2021. He was returning from a cannabis grow in Cheshire at the time, and 10 kilos of the drug was found in his car. He was arrested again by the NCA at his home in Nechells Park Road, Birmingham in November 2021.
Dinh was arrested at his partner’s address in Essex Street, Birmingham in August 2022.
By this time Mai Van Nguyen had already been detained in Liverpool, where he was visiting his girlfriend, in connection with a separate plot to smuggle migrants into the UK in the back of HGVs. He was later re-arrested for the cannabis production and trafficking offences in September 2022.
Nguyen and Tran both pleaded guilty to conspiring to produce cannabis, but the others denied the charge. All six denied charges of trafficking for exploitation.
On Monday 24 February, following a seven-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, all six men were found guilty of all charges.
They were remanded in custody and will be sentenced on Friday 4 July.
NCA Branch Commander Kevin Broadhead said:
“These men were responsible for the exploitation of a number of migrants who they moved around the UK and forced to work in cannabis farms.
“Not only were the migrants transported to the UK in incredibly dangerous ways in lorries or in boats, but they were then made to live in degrading conditions in order to pay off their debt bondage. We know some were also subjected to violence.
“But this gang didn’t care about that, they only saw the migrants as a way to make money.
“Tackling organised immigration crime is a priority for the NCA, and it is cases like this that demonstrate exactly why.”
Throughout the course of the NCA investigation cannabis farms linked to the network were found in Tipton, Coventry and Edgbaston in the West Midlands, Derby, Hartlepool, East Ham in London and Gatley in Cheshire. Harvested cannabis was recovered from a further property in Hall Green, Birmingham.
The NCA investigation was supported by West Midlands, Cleveland, Derbyshire and Metropolitan Police forces, as well as the Crown Prosecution Service and Home Office Immigration Enforcement.
25 February 2025
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