A CANNABIS factory was foiled after a landlord called the police having discovered his tenants had changed the locks.

Chien Hoang and Sang Nguyen, both in the UK illegally, were found in a Hampshire home which had been converted into a drugs cultivation operation run by organised criminals based in Vietnam. When police searched the house in Woodside Road in Southampton on August 16, they found it rigged up to grow cannabis with a total of 105 plants, weighing 8.8kg.

It is estimated that the crop was worth up to £44,100.

Matthew Lawson, prosecuting at Southampton Crown Court, said: “It was a commercial operation and both defendants were interviewed by police.

“Mr Nguyen gave limited answers to most questions saying he had arrived in the UK from France to escape debts in his home country.

“Mr Hoang arrived in the UK, paying 24,000 US dollars to be transported in a lorry.

“In the UK he had been contacted by a Vietnamese male who had arranged for him to go to Southampton to look after cannabis plants.

“He was going to get paid a percentage.”

Barnaby Shaw, defending Hoang, said his client was paying off the amount it cost to transport him here in 2010 and had been directed from Manch-ester to work in the cannabis factory in Southampton.

But the court heard how his co-defendant, Nguyen, was not directly involved in the factory and had only been staying over for a few days to “learn the ropes”.

Nugyen, 32, and Hoang, 27, both of no fixed address, admitted cultivating cannabis. Judge Gary Burrell sentenced Hoang to two years in jail and, after conceding his minor part in the operation, gave Nugyen four months behind bars. He said: “This was a relatively significant cannabis factory, perhaps not at a commercial scale, but at a significant level because there were more than 100 plants.”