A Harrogate woman who played the role of “facilitator” in a half-a-million-pound cannabis racket will have her accounts scrutinised before a financial-confiscation hearing to determine how much she pays back.
Yoko Banks, 73, a former guest-house owner, rented out her properties to an Albanian drug gang for “industrial” cannabis production “in the expectation of significant profit”, Leeds Crown Court heard.
The disgraced pensioner was jailed for three-and-a-half years in August last year after she admitted three counts of being concerned in the production of cannabis.
Her six co-conspirators, Visar Sellaj, 33, Kujtim Brahaj, 50, Indrit Brahaj, 27, Bledar Elezaj, 36, Andi Kokaj, 23, and 31-year-old Erblin Elezaj, an illegal immigrant, were jailed for a combined 22 years for various offences including drug supply and production of the highly potent skunk cannabis.
‘Complicated property empire’
Banks, who owns a string of “highly marketable” properties in some of Harrogate’s most desirable areas, now faces financial punishment under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), which will determine how much she has to pay back for her part in the drug plot worth at least half a million.
She was back in court today via video link from New Hall women’s prison in Wakefield.
Prosecutor Michael Bosomworth said the Crown was not yet in a position to make a financial confiscation ruling because Banks’ defence team needed more time to delve into her “complicated” accounts and extensive “property empire”.
He added:
“It’s a somewhat complicated property empire and there’s going to be some time (needed) to prepare it.”
He said that Banks’ solicitors were hiring a forensic accountant to pore over her properties and assets.
Yoko Banks was jailed at Leeds Crown Court last year. Picture: the Stray Ferret.
Banks’ defence counsel confirmed that a forensic accountant had been instructed to scrutinise her accounts and the “considerable amount” of properties and other assets” she owned.
Judge Neil Clark granted the defence an extra eight weeks to carry out an intensive audit of Banks’ assets.
She and her co-defendants will be back in court on Monday via video link when new dates will be set for the POCA hearings.
London gang invested in Banks’ properties
At the sentence hearing in August, the court heard that the “professional”, London-based gang had invested tens of thousands of pounds into three cannabis factories at Banks’s properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre.
The criminals had even dug a trench outside the three-storey Edwardian villa on Alexandra Road through which they fed electricity cables to the house to power the “highly sophisticated” cultivation system and bypass the electricity grid.
Their plot finally unravelled when police were called to the five-bedroom villa on September 26 last year after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the lucrative cannabis farm.
Officers found 283 plants in four growing rooms inside the mock-Tudor house, which was fitted with CCTV cameras. Chillingly, they also found a “large” crossbow and arrows next to the front door. The plants had a potential yield of up to 21 kilos.
Mr Bosomworth said the “organised” gang had operated the lighting, electrical and “security” systems remotely through broadband technology and were even able to watch a “live feed” of the drugs bust over the internet.
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There were other large grows at two of Banks’s other properties, which had the “capability of producing industrial amounts” of skunk.
She had rented the properties to the Albanians through an “unidentified individual who goes by the name of Francesco”, who sub-let the houses to the gang’s ringleader Sellaj.
Before the drug raid, the gang had fled in a Transit van and an Audi which were “trapped” on the M1 by police in Hertfordshire and finally stopped on the M25 just after midnight.
Police found 30kg of “saleable”, harvested cannabis plants inside the van worth about £300,000.
Inside the £26,000 Audi SQ5, which belonged to Sellaj, police found £3,675 in cash and an 18-carat-gold Rolex watch worth £28,000.
As well as the 283 plants at the Alexandra Road factory, there were also 143 “root balls” from previous harvests and 6kg of cannabis flower buds. The “industrial” operation would have yielded between 11kg and 33 kilos worth up to £330,000.
Fifty-nine cannabis plants, worth up to £83,000, were found at Banks’s Somerset Road property and 86 plants, with a “bulk value” of up to £62,000, were discovered at the house on Woodlands Road.
The total potential yield of the 395 plants was 45 kilos, with a combined value of up to £456,000. This was in addition to the 30 kilos found in the van and did not include previous harvests.
Banks played ‘facilitating role’
Although Banks was not involved in the cultivation, she had played a “facilitating” or advisory role in the plot. She was in “regular communication” with ‘Francesco’ and Sellaj through Whatsapp messages and was constantly “pressing to be paid by them”.
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 the three properties and was also receiving “high” deposits.
Her defence team claimed she had let out the properties to “supplement” her weekly pension due to financial pressures.
It’s understood that Banks had been planning to appeal her conviction but had since abandoned the idea.
