Mai Van Nguyen, Doung Dinh and Nghia Dinh Tran. All three have been convicted by a court in the UK. — Photos courtesy of the National Crime Agency

Paul Kennedy

HÀ NỘI — Three Vietnamese nationals have been convicted for playing a leading role in a crime gang forcing trafficked migrants to work in cannabis farms across the UK.

A National Crime Agency investigation identified that the ringleader of the gang, convicted people smuggler Mai Van Nguyen, 35, of Beetham Tower, Birmingham, ran large cannabis operations in the Midlands, London and the north of England.

He worked with fellow Vietnamese nationals Doung Dinh, 38, from Birmingham, and Nghia Dinh Tran, 24, from London, to exploit migrants by putting them to work.

During a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, a Vietnamese national named ‘Witness Z’ gave evidence for the prosecution, telling how he was exploited by the gang after arriving in the UK by boat in November 2020.

He initially travelled to the UK to pay off money he had borrowed to fund medical treatment for his wife, and was given a phone number to call by his traffickers when he arrived.

After being processed by the immigration authorities he was driven from London to Birmingham, before being put to work in a cannabis grow in nearby Tipton, West Midlands.

Witness Z said he had no choice but to work as he was in debt to the people who had transported him to the UK.

Later he was taken to the site of another cannabis grow in Tyseley, Birmingham, where he was forced to help clear up the property.

One of the cannabis farms in the UK ran by the Vietnamese gang.

Witness Z was then transported to another cannabis farm at a house in Hartlepool, Teesside. This was raided by Cleveland Police in June 2021 and Witness Z was arrested.

Inside the property, officers found a note pinned to a bedroom door saying “take what you want, please don’t hit me, I do not know English”, and a hand-written diary extract from a migrant in which they ask “why did I get beaten up and forced to work?”

Two days later, Tran was arrested at a cannabis farm in Chaddesden, Derby, where dozens of plants and two migrants were also found. Officers also linked Tran to another address in Chad Road, Birmingham, where a further cannabis farm was found.

At another raid in East Ham, London, four Vietnamese migrants were found inside tending to cannabis plants.

Dinh was arrested at his partner’s address in Essex Street, Birmingham in August 2022.

By this time, Mai Van Nguyen had already been detained in Liverpool, where he was visiting his girlfriend, in connection with a separate plot to smuggle migrants into the UK in the back of HGVs. He was later re-arrested for the cannabis production and trafficking offences in September 2022.

Nguyen and Tran both pleaded guilty to conspiring to produce cannabis. Three other men not from Việt Nam, were also convicted.

On Monday 24 February, following a seven-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, all six men were found guilty of all charges.

NCA Branch Commander Kevin Broadhead said: “These men were responsible for the exploitation of a number of migrants who they moved around the UK and forced to work in cannabis farms.

“Not only were the migrants transported to the UK in incredibly dangerous ways in lorries or in boats, but they were then made to live in degrading conditions in order to pay off their debt bondage. We know some were also subjected to violence.

“But this gang didn’t care about that, they only saw the migrants as a way to make money.

“Tackling organised immigration crime is a priority for the NCA, and it is cases like this that demonstrate exactly why.”

Throughout the course of the NCA investigation, cannabis farms linked to the network were found in Tipton, Coventry and Edgbaston in the West Midlands, Derby, Hartlepool, East Ham in London and Gatley in Cheshire. Harvested cannabis was recovered from a further property in Hall Green, Birmingham.

All men were remanded in custody and will be sentenced on Friday 4 July. — VNS