A fire at a rural property has led to a man pleading guilty to illegally growing 35,000 tobacco plants worth millions in Victoria's west.
Abud El Hamid El Kerdi, 29, pleaded on Monday in the Victorian County Court to two charges of producing and manufacturing tobacco in Moorabool without the authorisation to do so.
The illegal tobacco operation was uncovered in January 2014 when a fire broke out on a Geelong-Ballan Road property, which had three large hothouses.
The Country Fire Authority and Victoria Police responded to the fire and saw seedling plants growing in the hothouses.
They also saw a shipping container had been set up as a water tank, and there was a water irrigation system connected to a dam via a pump.
The Australian Taxation Office subsequently discovered El Kerdi had taken out a commercial lease on the property and was paying $4000 a month in rent.
Two months after the fire, authorities raided the property and found 35,000 tobacco plants.
The plants were about two metres high and yielded 35,760 kilograms of green tobacco.
This equated to 4361 kilograms of dried tobacco, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions says.
It's predicted the federal government would have lost about $2.2 million in potential taxes, if that illegal tobacco had reached its market.
Police also found a cutting machine and a large metal tobacco press in the garage of El Kerdi's Melbourne residence in Hoppers Crossing.
Judge Jane Patrick does not believe El Kerdi, who is unemployed, was acting alone.
"He couldn't have paid for it," she told the court.
El Kerdi's offences carry a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment and he will be sentenced on November 11.
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