Drug boss who stuffed Coventry nightclub with 1,500 cannabis plants handed sentence

[dutchman]

Big Bamboo, formerly the Silver Sword, was raided by police back in 2020 where they found cannabis plants worth more than £1 million



A cannabis kingpin who used an old Coventry nightclub as part of huge 'farm' network has been jailed. Roman Le ran an empire of at least eight cannabis farms in residential and commercial properties, as well as a storage facility housing both equipment and harvested cannabis.

Le, the head of the complex operation and organised crime group, has now been jailed for more than six years following a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation.

Posing as a property developer, Le took over the Big Bamboo nightclub on Trinity Street, better known to Coventrians as the Silver Sword, and used it as part of a multi-million pound network of cannabis factories staffed by illegal migrants spread across across the Midlands, North West and north Lincolnshire.

The Coventry nightclub was raided by the NCA and West Midlands Police in October 2020. Officers found more than 1,500 plants, worth more than £1 million, spread over three floors. NCA surveillance officers had previously watched as Le visited the site, parking his Bentley Continental outside the building.

The 38-year-old, from Birmingham, sourced the properties by buying or renting them, in some cases putting up scaffolding around the buildings to make it look like building work was taking place.

Le worked with fellow gang members Yihao Feng, aged 29, from Manchester, and David Qayumi, aged 36, from Birmingham, to source and operate the properties.

Other locations included a former pub in Birmingham and an old hotel in Lancashire. Overall the farms were capable of making millions of pounds worth of cannabis. Many of the farms were staffed by Vietnamese or Albanian illegal migrants, some of whom were likely being exploited because of their immigration status.

Qayumi posed as a businessman, working with Le to buy, rent or sub-let the properties, while Feng acted as an ‘operations manager’ for the group, making sure the factories kept working and that what was happening inside was kept a secret.

Le was arrested at his home, an apartment in Essex Street, Birmingham, which he shared with his girlfriend, on November 4, 2020.

Both Feng and Qayumi pleaded guilty to conspiring to produce cannabis, but Le denied the charge, claiming he was a legitimate businessman who had no knowledge that the properties he had interests in were being used for cannabis grows. Following an eight-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court, on 5 June he was found guilty.

On 4 July Feng and Qayumi were handed prison sentences totalling six-and-a-half years. Today (30 July) at the same court Le was sentenced to six-years-and-two-months.