Man ordered to pay back just £1 for his role in half-a-million-pound Albanian drug racket in North Yorkshire

Andi Kokaj, 23, was part of a London-based gang which conspired with former Harrogate guest-house owner Yoko Banks to set up three lucrative cannabis factories in affluent streets.

He was jailed for three years in August last year for being concerned in the production of cannabis.

At a financial confiscation hearing today at Leeds Crown Court, judge Tom Bayliss KC ruled that Kokaj would pay a nominal fee of £1 after the prosecution said he played a “minor” role in the criminal enterprise.

Prosecutor Michael Bosomworth said the gang had converted three of Banks’s properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre into cannabis farms with potential yields of up to £456,000.

The gang made an estimated £345,000 from the drug plot.

However, Kokaj, played a “lesser role” and was paid just £80 a day for his part in the conspiracy and so made a financial gain of £1,120, added Mr Bosomworth.

He said that Kokaj, from London but of no fixed address, had no assets.

Mr Bayliss KC duly made the nominal £1 order due to Kokaj’s limited financial means.

Kokaj didn’t attend the confiscation hearing and the court heard he was “probably nowhere to be found”.

When he was sentenced last summer, he was told he would only have to serve half of the three-year sentence behind bars, less the time he had spent on remand, which means he is likely to have been released from jail.

Banks, 74, of Scargill Road, Harrogate, was also due to face financial confiscation today but her case was adjourned yet again for the service of financial documents setting out her complex web of assets and properties.

Earlier this year, the former B&B boss and property tycoon failed in her bid to have her conviction quashed after being convicted of three counts of being concerned in the production of cannabis.

The court heard the disgraced pensioner was the “facilitator” for the Albanian gang’s cannabis-cultivation enterprise.

Her six co-conspirators, Kokaj, Visar Sellaj, 33, Kujtim Brahaj, 50, Indrit Brahaj, 27, Bledar Elezaj, 36, and 31-year-old Erblin Elezaj, were jailed for a combined 22 years for various offences including drug supply and production of the highly potent skunk cannabis in August 2021.

Banks, who rented out her three properties to the gang to convert into cannabis farms, was jailed for three-and-a-half years and is due to be released from New Hall women’s prison in West Yorkshire on December 31, halfway through her sentence.

At a previous adjourned confiscation hearing, Mr Bosomworth said that Banks owned a string of “highly marketable” properties in some of Harrogate’s most desirable areas.

He added, however, that her “complicated accounts and property empire” were proving to be a major sticking point in the ongoing financial investigation.

On that occasion, Banks claimed she had no money because it had been frozen in her bank account.

She said, however, that she had “a lot” of assets.

r Bosomworth said that Sellaj, the gang’s ringleader, had made £438,000 from the cannabis-cultivation enterprise and that he had £76,000 in the bank which he could pay back into public coffers.

At a contested financial confiscation hearing in May, it was found that Indrit Brahaj had jointly benefited from the criminal enterprise to the tune of £133,328.

In his case, a confiscation order of £24,082 was made.

Kujtim Brahaj was found to have benefited to the tune of £1,194.

The judge made a nominal confiscation order of £1 in his case due to limited financial means.

The prosecution said that Banks rented out her properties to the “professional” drug gang for “industrial” cannabis production “in the expectation of significant profit”, though she had no part in the actual cultivation process.

Their mega-money plot finally unravelled when police were called to a five-bedroom villa owned by Banks in September 2020 after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the cannabis farm.

Banks, who had previous convictions for health-and-safety offences through her work, was due to be paid at least £12,000 a month in rent for use of the three properties and was also receiving “high” deposits, said Mr Bosomworth.

Her final confiscation hearing was adjourned to January 6 next year to give her defence counsel time to provide evidence that some of the bank transfers to her account were “legitimate”.

Ringleader Sellaj’s financial confiscation proceedings were adjourned for a full-day hearing to determine the amount of cash available to him.