REILLY: DRUG BARON FACES JAIL
A drug baron who ran a ‘military style’ cannabis factory from underground bunkers made from buried shipping containers is facing jail.
The complex hidden behind concealed trapdoors was Britain’s most sophisticated pot producing facility.
Workers at the complex in Essex, had their own sleeping quarters and were protected by guard dogs and an arsenal of weapons including a Kalashnikov rifle, shotguns and petrol bombs.
Jaguar-driving site owner John Reilly, 46, admitted producing cannabis and a series of firearms charges.
But site security guard Georghe Anton, 49, was cleared by a jury of producing cannabis at the site in Arnold’s Fields, Rainham after a month long trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court.
Officer worker Lisa Shortall, 29, who banked £125,000 over a few weeks on behalf of Reilly’s failing company Express Auctions shook and burst into tears as she was cleared.
Irish national Rory McEleavey, 22, and Romanians Ionel Lazar, 22; Bogden Oncioiu, 24; Christian-Mircea Lungu, 39, were also acquitted by the jury of producing the drug.
Most of the defendants were employed by Reilly and insisted they were working at what they thought was a landfill site for a few hundred pounds per week.
McEleavey maintained he was just visiting the site at the time of the raid to bid on a truck online for his haulage business.
Reilly now faces sentence on a date to be fixed.
Earlier prosecutor Bill McGivern told jurors: ‘No doubt, members of the jury, you have heard of houses being rented out and then being converted into a cannabis factory.
‘In this case, the police had uncovered a highly sophisticated series of cannabis factories all on the one site.
‘In fact, this was taking cannabis production to a level of sophistication never before seen in the United Kingdom.
‘This was organised along almost military lines.
‘It required investment in time, planning, machinery, substantial amounts of money and not least people to operate the business.’
Police raided the site on 22 February this year and found a trapdoor in a portacabin leading to a
‘fully functional cannabis factory’ made of five buried shipping containers containing 297 cannabis plants.
Two similar bunkers were found, one of which appeared to be about to go into production and another from which cannabis had apparently recently been harvested.
Cops found nearly £20,000 in cash in a cabin used as an office, two working handguns, one of which was stored inside a paper tray of the photocopier, an imitation gun and a stash of ammunition.
A Kalashnikov assault rifle, a handgun and two sawn off shotguns were in another container, and three primed petrol bombs and a supply of petrol were also found in one of the sleeping areas.
The office had £14,500 in cash on a desk, with £3,780 in a safe, as well as a computer showing online research into setting up a cannabis factory from 2010, and purchases of equipment including high wattage light bulbs from Ebay.
Reilly, of Stepney Green Court, Stepney, east London, admitted producing cannabis between 1 July 2010 and 22 February 2011, and possessing three prohibited firearms – two self-loading pistols, and a Colt revolver.
He also admitted possessing an AKM assault rifle, 132 bulleted cartridges, and two shotguns.
Shortall, of South Road, South Ockendon, and McEleavey, of (flat 8) Pine House, Gorse Ave, Chatham, Kent, were cleared of deny producing cannabis between 1 July 2010 and 22 February 2011.
Romanians Ionel Lazar, Bogden Oncioiu, Georghe Anton and his son-in-law Christian-Mircea Lungu, all of whom were apparently living at the site, were cleared of the same charge.
They will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.
