A MAN was caught growing 203 cannabis plants worth £203,000 in two terraced houses on a busy main road.

Klajdi Musta, 35, was tending to the drugs in the properties on Coed Y Brain Road in Llanbradach, near Caerphilly.

The houses were raided by police on May 3, prosecutor Byron Broadstock told Cardiff Crown Court.

The main operation was at 69 Coed Y Brain Road where officers found 173 cannabis plants whose yield had a potential street value of £170,000.

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The other smaller one was at 26 Coed Y Brain Road.

Musta pleaded guilty to producing a class B drug.

His barrister Sol Hartley said his client was in “a dire situation”.

He told the court how the Albanian national had arrived in the UK after being deported for staying illegally in Greece.

Musta still has a wife and two children who are living in Greece.

Mr Hartley said: “The defendant left Albania wanting to make a better life for himself.

“The worst punishment he will suffer is being deported home where he doesn’t have a future for himself.”

The judge, Recorder David Payne, told Musta: “You came to this country illegally in a lorry after you had been deported from Greece and you were made to pay off a debt to those who brought you to the UK.

“I’m told that your family are still in Greece and they do not know that you are in custody here.

“You said you had been here for two months before you were arrested and that you were watering the plants and that you had learned what to do by watching videos on the internet.

“You would not tell the police who had given you the instructions or who had put you in the properties.

“This was an operation capable of producing significant amounts of cannabis.”

Recorder Payne added that Musta had been “exploited”.

The defendant was jailed for 32 weeks.

The court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs.