Drugs ring man guilty

A wealthy Shropshire restaurant owner has been convicted of masterminding a major drugs ring across the Midlands.

Qi Xing Weng's operation included one of the region's biggest cannabis factories - a former Benefits Agency office in Ward End, Birmingham - which housed between 6,000 to 10,000 plants with a street value of more than £1 million.

The 29-year-old, of Dale End Court, Ironbridge, owned Chinese and Thai restaurants the Tiger Bowl in Watling Street, Telford, Siam Cottage in Ironbridge and the Tiger Bowl in Belle Vue Road, Shrewsbury, at the time, as well as restaurants in Staff- ord and Stoke-on-Trent.

Staffordshire Police spokesman Peter Bate said raids by officers last May uncovered £170,000 in cash hidden in a bin liner in loft insulation at Weng's home and £23,000 at the Ironbridge restaurant.

Other cash was also found, along with a fledgling cannabis factory housing 200 seedlings at a house in Lower Ford Street, Coventry.

Mr Bate said Weng's fingerprints were on the tenancy agreement.

Weng was convicted yesterday, following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, of conspiracy to produce cannabis, concealing criminal property and possessing cannabis. He had denied the charges.

He was remanded in custody to be sentenced on December 11.

Mohammed Nawaz, 60, from North Acton, London, oversaw the Ward End cannabis factory. He was convicted of conspiracy to produce cannabis and remanded in custody for sentencing at a later date.

The drugs ring was cracked following an investigation by Staffordshire Police's Serious and Organised Crime Unit which unearthed numerous cannabis factories in Stoke-on-Trent.

Det Sgt Dave Hughes, from the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, led the investigation. He said: "This lengthy and detailed inquiry led to the dismantling of an organised crime group which was behind wide-scale cannabis production across the West Midlands."

By Simon Hardy