Lithuanian national Mantas Vidutis was the only person present when Gardaí searched a sophisticated Castlebellingham cannabis operation. His phone showed he had stayed there for six weeks and left only to obtain food. He pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis for sale or supply and received three years.
The Castlebellingham search
On 20 May 2024 Garda personnel searched two Co Louth properties. The official initial statement valued the combined seizure at €768,000. At the Castlebellingham property it recorded approximately €80,000 in plants and €580,000 in herb.
The later sentencing evidence for Vidutis’s location recorded 123 plants worth €98,000 and 28.6kg of harvested herb worth €572,000: €670,000 in all. The figures reflect different stages of seizure and court reporting; this file uses the later case-specific total for his headline and does not add the separate Dundalk seizure.
Six weeks recorded on the phone
Vidutis was alone in an upstairs living area when Gardaí arrived. He supplied his phone PIN. The device showed that he had been inside the property for the preceding six weeks and that his movements outside were limited to obtaining food.
He claimed he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and did not accept that he tended the plants. The defence said he previously worked as a scaffolder, had suffered an accident and was exploited because of his physical disability, with an element of fear involved.
A probation report found that he lacked victim awareness, minimised cannabis-related harm and believed legalisation was only a matter of time. Judge Dara Hayes described him as operating at the lowest rung, or as a grow-house “gardener”, while treating the quantity and sophistication as aggravating.
Plea and sentence
Vidutis pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis worth €13,000 or more for sale or supply. He had no previous convictions. In November 2025 Dundalk Circuit Court imposed three years, backdated to 24 October 2025 to credit 347 days previously spent on remand before he took up bail.
The located record does not establish when he entered Ireland, his immigration permission, an asylum history, or any removal or exclusion process. None is inferred from Lithuanian nationality.
Chronology
- About April 2024: phone evidence later places Vidutis in the house for roughly six weeks.
- 20 May 2024: Garda search finds the cultivation rooms and harvested drug.
- Before sentence: guilty plea entered to possession for sale or supply.
- 24 October 2025: backdating point used to account for earlier remand.
- 11 November 2025: three-year sentence reported.
- Latest located record: no published appeal or immigration-enforcement outcome identified.
Cost benchmark
The three-year term represents a gross staffed-prison-space benchmark of €297,216 at the Irish Prison Service’s 2024 average annual figure of €99,072.
Questions the record leaves
- Who controlled and financed the Castlebellingham grow house?
- Who arranged Vidutis’s presence and accommodation there?
- What did the search, prosecution and imprisonment cost in full?
- What immigration review, if any, follows the sentence?
- What became of the other people and the second property in the Garda operation?