All three were sentenced after trial at Stafford Crown Court on Thursday 28 March, ending a successful 18-month covert investigation by officers from our major and organised proactive team.
Between July 2018 and June 2022, the men were part of a group that set up ‘professional cannabis grows’ in Burton-upon-Trent and at various locations in the northwest of England and supplied wholesale quantities of the Class B drug to dealers.
All three were found guilty of conspiring to supply a class B controlled drug and were sentenced to:
Banirjan Hoxha, 41, from Swadlincote – five years and four months
Lee McCarthy, 36, from Sutton Coldfield – four years and four months
Jamie Loxley, 36, from Tamworth – two years
Throughout the operation, our officers gathered intelligence on the defendants, who were seen visiting their production sites and meeting with ‘gardeners’ housed at the locations to look after the crop.
In June 2020, we raided a cannabis factory controlled by Hoxha in Burton-upon-Trent. Inside the property, on Eton Road, officers found 70 cannabis plants in the loft with a street value of around £38,500.
This followed an earlier seizure of 227 cannabis plants from the boot of van linked to the men. People known to be involved in drug supply were also seen visiting McCarthy’s home address in Tamworth, which acted as the ‘distribution hub’ for the operation.
