Man jailed over £500,000 cannabis farm discovered in Kirn

A man caught inside a large-scale cannabis farm at the former tax office building in Kirn last year was jailed this week for four years.
Xhonildo Baki, 28, was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on Tuesday after admitting being concerned in the production of cannabis at the old Inland Revenue building on West Street, Dunoon.
The disused property, known locally as Auchencruive House or the old tax offices, sits only a short distance from Dunoon Police Station and was raided by officers in May last year.
Police who entered the building discovered a substantial cultivation spread across the three-storey premises.
The court heard that the property’s windows had been boarded up and CCTV had recently been installed.
Prosecutor John Coogan said Baki was seen leaving by a rear door when officers arrived, but went back inside and locked the door after spotting police.
Officers forced entry and uncovered what was described in court as a major cannabis-growing operation.
Baki was later found hiding in a basement foundation area, accessed through a hole in the ground floor.
A total of 889 cannabis plants, at various stages of growth, were recovered from the building.
The haul was said to have a potential street value of 533,400.
During police interview, Baki said he had been in the building for an unspecified job and claimed he had gone there voluntarily.
The court also heard that he said he had arrived in the UK in 2020 in the back of a lorry.
Judge Douglas Brown said the offence merited a five-year prison sentence, but reduced that to four years because of Baki’s guilty plea.
Defence solicitor Paul Mullen said his client was sorry for becoming involved and had shown genuine remorse.
The case brought to a close a major local investigation which began when police swooped on the Kirn building in May 2025.
At the time, the Dunoon Observer reported that officers remained at the scene for days removing materials from the site, while local speculation surrounded the discovery of a hidden area within the property.
The Kirn raid also came amid wider police enquiries into suspected drug-related activity in Cowal, including another cultivation discovered in Kilmun and the dumping of bags of suspected grow-house waste near Ardentinny.