Migrants tricked into working at cannabis grow house
A Dublin court has heard that two economic migrants who answered an ad for gardening job were tricked into living in primitive and horrendous conditions in a cannabis growing operation.
The men - both Chinese nationals - have been jailed for two years.
The two men, who both came from different farming families in China, answered advertisements in a Chinese newspaper offering jobs as flower growers here in Ireland.
However they were forced to live in an industrial lock-up in close proximity to chemicals with high levels of humidity and noise created by the air conditioning system installed to grow the cannabis plants.
Xiabin Huang (aged 30) and Yong Chen (aged 35), both of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the cultivation of cannabis plants at Millennium Business Park, Ballycoolin on March 7 this year.
The 900 plants discovered at the industrial unit had an estimated marked value of around €800,000 - but one of the men was never paid the money he was promised for his work.
Judge Martin Nolan said the men has carried out a "crime of desperation". He imposed sentences of two years on both men.
