As police prepared to smash their way into suspected cannabis factory and raid the property two men working inside unexpectedly opened the door and stepped out.
When officers entered the house they found it had been given over to the production of the Class B drug with more than 900 plants growing over the four-storeys.
Police also found the garden path had been dug and the electricity cable running into the house had been tapped into.
Swansea Crown Court heard the two men arrested on the doorstep were Albanian nationals who had paid people traffickers to smuggle them into the UK. Sending the pair to prison, a judge said theirs was an account he had heard often in recent months.
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, that at 10.35am on May 14 this year police went to Uplands in Swansea to execute a search warrant. As officers arrived at the end-of-terrace property on Eaton Crescent the door opened Elis Metaliaj and Nuri Shehu stepped out. The pair were detained and searched - Metaliaj was found to be in possession of £1,000 cash, while his housemate had £775.
Mr Rouch said police found the four-storey property had been "converted into a substantial cannabis growing operation" with 915 plants of various stages of maturity along with the associated growing equipment. One of the downstairs rooms was being used as "living quarters" with beds, a television, and a computer games console. The court heard the electricity meter had been by-passed, and the front path to the house had been dug up to allow an illegal hook-up to the mains.
When interviewed Metaliaj answered "no comment" to all questions, while Shehu handed in a prepared statement in which he said he had been at the Swansea property for around six weeks, and that threats were being made against his family.
The court heard shop receipts found at the address along with CCTV footage from Swansea city centre suggested the pair had been able to come and go at the Uplands property, and had had money to spend in town. Mr Rouch said it was accepted the defendants had been "effectively acting as gardeners", albeit ones receiving some financial benefit and with some freedom of movement.
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Elis Metaliaj, aged 21, and 25-year-old Nuri Shehu - both of no fixed abode - had previously pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and to abstracting electricity when they appeared in the dock together for sentencing via videolink from Swansea prison. Neither defendant has any previous convictions in England and Wales.
Stephen Thomas for Metaliaj said his client had been in the country for some eight months having travelled to Britain to find work and "find a better life for himself". He said the defendant had travelled to the UK "with the assistance of others - and was indebted to them", and arrangements had been made for him to work at the Swansea house. The barrister added the Metaliaj regrets getting involved in the enterprise.
Manhesh Karu, for Shehu, said his client's account echoed much of what his learned friend had said on behalf of the co-defendant. He said Shehu had travelled to the UK in the hope of finding work in the construction sector but that proved impossible and, with nowhere to live and feeling desperate, he had "reluctantly at first" agreed to work in Swansea. The barrister said his client also regretted getting involved in the operation.
Judge Paul Thomas QC said the accounts of how the defendants came to be working at a cannabis plantation in south Wales was one he had heard many times from Albanian nationals in recent times.
Following the guidelines and with credit for their guilty pleas the judge sentenced both Metaliaj and Shehu to 12 months in prison.
