A disgraced churchgoing Co Down farmer, sentenced for operating a large scale cannabis farm, was once involved in a huge land deal in Ukraine, the same year he claims to have been declared bankrupt.
Clive Weir, a 56-year-old father-of-six and member of the Free Presbyterian church, was jailed for 18 months for overseeing the cannabis farm that would have grossed millions over several harvests for an organised crime gang reaping most of the profits.
Weir was paid just £40,000 for overseeing the operation capable of producing cannabis with a street value of £200,000 a month, or £2.4m over a year.
The grow operation, farmed by two Vietnamese nationals who lived in a caravan on site, was housed in a silo just yards from the front door of his home.
The farm was so vast Weir was paying an average of £15,000 a month for oil to run the generator, with the steady stream of lorries ferrying the fuel raising deep suspicions, according to one local resident.
Suspicions were further fuelled by the throb of the generator running 24 hours a day, while at one point there was also a smell of cannabis coming from the drains close to the silo.
Weir, who initially denied knowing anything about the operation yards from his home but changed his plea to guilty in September, once ran what appeared to be thriving poultry operation along with an arable farm on 2200 acres in the north with another 400 leased in the Republic.
In a 2005 interview with Farmers Weekly, Weir declared “we spent £120,000 alone this year on fixed equipment for grain drying” as he was ramping up the arable farming.
At one point, the poultry producer had 110,000 laying hens. He took over the poultry production in 1995 from his father, who started the operation in 1967.
In 2006, Weir became involved in a 12,000 acre farm near Lutsk in Ukraine and was once looking to purchase a farm in Brazil, according to his LinkedIn account.
But Weir’s defence counsel told the court he suffered from anxiety and depression since being declared bankrupt the same year, 2006, and said that at the time the cannabis factory was raided “he wasn’t thinking straights. He had significant family issues and had somewhat lost focus”.
Images on social media from after the raid show him smiling, apparently happy and surrounded by family. He was also pictured on a family holiday in Ibiza earlier this year, while on bail.
The Free Presbyterian church goer was linked to the DUP in an article published shortly after the police descended on the farm in February, 2023. While the party does not disclose membership details, local members insist he has no connection to the party.
Judge Donna McColgan postponed confiscation proceedings until January 28. Weir is currently the sole director of two companies, C&K Trading and CK Campers, with combined capital and reserves of just under £100,000.
In a statement, a Detective Inspector Kelly of the PSNI’s Organised Crime Branch said they believe the operation had all the “hallmarks of organised crime involvement”.
She said that due to “vast quantities of drugs found, we believe this operation was capable of making millions of pounds over a number of harvests”.
“This was a large and sophisticated cannabis farm and was clearly a well organised operation, which bore all the hallmarks of organised criminal gang involvement, Det Insp Kelly said.
“These drugs would have made their way to other criminal groups across Northern Ireland, who in turn attempt to increase their grip on communities by onward supply and profiteering.”
Specialist police search teams, backed by a hovering helicopter, were involved in a four day operation “to dismantle the cannabis farm due to the sheer size and complexity of the construction”.
Two Vietnamese nationals, Anh Nguyen and Quy Nguyen, were discovered living in a caravan inside the building and arrested for drugs-related offences. Both were sentenced to one year in prison and one on licence.
The cannabis growing business across the UK is dominated by organised crime gangs, most notably Albanian and Vietnamese nationals.
