A MAN who made tens of thousands of pounds setting up a cannabis factory on the top floor of his house has been told he needs to repay just £4,254.

Financial investigators found skunk grower Hoang Van-Tran had profited from crime to the tune of £53,531.64p.

But the 40-year-old, who claimed to have lost a fortune through bad investments, only has £4,254 in realisable assets, a judge was told.

Now he has been given six months to hand over the sum, some of which is in the form of property which has to be sold.

If he fails to do so he could face a jail term of up to three months added to the 20 months he is already serving.

And should he come into money in the future it will be open to the authorities to pursue him for the remainder that he owes.

Van-Tran claimed he turned to crime when he got into financial trouble after investing in a Ponzi scheme which collapsed, leaving him close to bankruptcy.

In a bid to raise fast cash the Vietnamese-born man, who has lived in the UK since he was four-years-old, set up a sophisticated drug growing operation at his end of terrace home.

But neighbours tipped off patrolling police of their suspicion about what was going on in the house on Cambria Bridge Road.

When officers went to the property in June last year and confronted Van-Tran, who was working as a courier, he told them 'It's upstairs' .

On the top floor of the house they found 111 plants in various stages of maturity with lighting, ventilation, watering and heating systems.

The electricity meter had also been bypassed allowing him to get the power to run the operation free of charge.

If all the plants were harvested they could have yielded 4kg of skunk with a wholesale value of more than £10,000 and a street value of up to £40,000.

As well as the drugs, police also found £1,300 which was the proceeds of crime, when they searched the house.

When he was questioned the defendant said that there was another man, called Mr Ming, involved which prosecutors did not accept.

Van-Tran pleaded guilty to producing drugs, abstracting electricity and possessing criminal property.

The court was told that after investing in a Ponzi scheme which collapsed he entered an individual voluntary arrangement paying £200 a month to his creditors.

It was claimed that with the assistance of his family he had bought some houses which are rented out.