Cannabis baron became millionaire - growing skunk in old lorry trailers

Terrence Nolan operated two drugs factories capable of turning over a £3.5 million a year - now he has to pay back £30,000 or face more time in prison

A cannabis baron who became a millionaire growing skunk in old lorry trailers must pay back more than £30,000 or face another 15 months in jail.

Terrence Nolan, 58, was jailed for nine years in February 2012 for operating two drugs factories capable of turning over a £3.5 million a year.

Nolan, with the help of Steven Gizzi, 61, and Anthony King, 63, converted five lorry trailers inside a rented industrial unit and a remote farm house into 'highly sophisticated' cannabis production lines.

Nolan spent his share of the vast profits on luxury goods, including a gold Rolex watch worth £3,850 and property in Sicily.

When officers raided his home they found bags full of cash stashed in a hidden safe.

Judge Martin Beddoe ordered Nolan to pay £30,354 from the scam which saw him profit £1m within six months or face another 15 months in prison.

Gizzi was ordered to stump up £14,447.30 after earning £58,050 from the criminal enterprise.

He was jailed for three years and nine months in 2012 and faces another nine months inside if he fails to hand over the cash within six months. No order was made against King.

Nolan was caught after police acting on information mounted a surveillance operation.

He was arrested inside one of five lorries rigged up to grow drugs at an industrial unit in Grays, Essex, in April 2009.

In one trailer officers discovered 1,002 rooted cannabis plants in boxes, while a second was being used to dry the plants and a third was in the process of being fitted with insulation slabs.

Days earlier Nolan had been spotted buying cannabis growing equipment with Gizzi at a hydroponics shop called Future Gardens, in Hainault.

Nolan was also linked to a cannabis factory uncovered in a dilapidated farm building in Tomkyns Lane, in Upminster, where officers found 1,020 plants on a trailer worth £229,000.

Prosecutor Roger Smart said: 'Adding the value of the plants together the estimated street value of the whole operation in respect of the cannabis was found to be in the region of £778,000.

'Because of the sophisticated method used to grow the plants it is estimated it could have produced three crops a year with a total value at street level of £3.5m'.

Nolan claimed that when he was arrested he had been working for Gizzi clearing out the industrial unit in Grays.

He claimed the bags full of notes found at his home had come from selling off his late brother's estate and from 'speculating' on antique furniture and jewellery.

The charges

Nolan of Wardlow, Ingestre Road, Kentish Town, north west London, was convicted of conspiracy to produce cannabis, conspiracy to supply cannabis between January and September 2009 and conspiracy to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property between January 2004 and January 2010.

Gizzi, of Cambridge Avenue, Kilburn, west London, and King, of Rydal Drive, Bexleyheath, Kent, pleaded guilty at the outset of the trial to conspiracy to produce cannabis and conspiracy to supply cannabis between January and September 2009.

Gizzi was jailed for three years and nine months while King avoided jail after his 12 month sentence was suspended for two years.

Nolan's wife Alison, 46, and nephew Mark, 30, were accused of helping to launder the profits of the operation, but were cleared of any involvement.

Alison Nolan, of the same address, and Mark Nolan of Quex Road, in Kilburn, also north west London, were cleared of conspiracy to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property between January 2004 and January 2010.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cannabis-baron-became-millionaire---5177894 16/02/2015