The alleged ringleader of a plot to grow £400,000 worth of cannabis at three sites in Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire and Worcestershire has been found in Spain thanks to a BBC Crimewatch tip-off.

Andrew O'Donnell, 33, had been arrested last year on suspicion of conspiracy to produce a Class B drug in October but failed to answer his police bail and fled abroad.

Following an appeal on Crimewatch police managed to locate him in Nerja in Spain and on Thursday he was extradited to the UK from Madrid. He was charged with conspiring to produce cannabis, abstracting electricity and possessing a weapon for the discharge of a noxious liquid/ gas/ electrical incapacitation device.

O'Donnell (pictured) appeared before magistrates in Cheltenham last Friday (4th October) and was remanded in custody. He will next appear at Gloucester Crown Court on 1st November.

During the investigation police raids were made at an industrial estate in Forest View Road in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, a farm in Monmouthshire and O'Donnell's house in Tenbury Wells in which hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cannabis plants were seized.

Subterranean cannabis grows were discovered at the address in Tenbury Wells in July 2012, with five substantial containers buried next to woodland, connected to the surface by a brick shaft.

Two of his alleged henchmen – Philip Johns, 58, of Wilcae Terrace, Raglan, and Paul Gibbard, 35, of School Mews, Matson, Gloucester – were tried at Gloucester crown court in April this year.

They both denied conspiring to produce cannabis between 1st April 2011 and 14th July last year. Johns also denied abstracting electricity to run the cannabis factory on his land at Glannau Farm, Lydart, between January 2008 and July 2012.

Gibbard was convicted but the jury failed to agree in the case of Johns. Another man, Robert Ockleton, 23, of Swallow Crescent, Innsworth, near Gloucester, admitted his role in the plot.

The court heard that on 9th March last year tenants on the Forest Vale Industrial estate at Cinderford reported a smell of cannabis from a rented unit.

It was raided and 371 cannabis plants were found growing inside. They had a street value of £184,000.

At Glannau Farm near Monmouth were 143 mature plants and 150 seedlings and their street value would have been about £120,000. They were being heated and lit by electricity which had been illegally abstracted from the mains by by-passing the farm meter.

O'Donnell's farm at Tenbury Wells was raided on July 13th and an even more sophisticated growing operation was found.

The factory was underground in the garden and was monitored by CCTV which was being shown on a TV screen in a bedroom in the house.