Vienna court adjourns trial over industrial-scale cannabis plantation

Vienna’s criminal court on Thursday adjourned the trial of nine people accused of growing cannabis in industrial quantities, ORF reported. The proceedings will continue on Friday.

The two main defendants, aged 42 and 46, allegedly took over a warehouse measuring more than 3,000 square metres in Vienna’s Liesing district in spring 2024 and converted it into an illegal cannabis-growing operation. Prosecutors say they intended to sell the harvest for profit.

The two men deny the allegations and describe the operation as a legal research business. They face up to 15 years in prison, while another defendant faces up to five years.

According to the prosecution, hundreds of kilograms of cannabis were produced on a 1,500-square-metre growing area by early September 2025. When police raided the plantation last year, they found 9,270 cannabis plants and seized 300 kilograms of cannabis packed in 99 bags.

Another 420 kilograms were found in several self-storage facilities allegedly rented by the third defendant, a 56-year-old homeless man.

Defence says business was legal

The prosecutor said the plantation had all the necessary technology and infrastructure for cultivation, as well as a fully equipped kitchen, sanitary facilities and sleeping areas. Gardeners employed to care for the plants lived in the warehouse.

The nine workers, who were of Serbian origin, also had a recreation area with a television, a PlayStation console, several laptops and a dartboard.

The two main defendants have pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers, Normann Hofstätter and Volkert Sackmann, said their clients had legally traded cannabis cuttings rather than producing narcotics.

“Cuttings can be legally bought and legally sold,” Hofstätter said. He described the business as a legal model that produced cannabis varieties with reduced narcotic content.

The 46-year-old defendant told the court that he had built a legal company and had received a permit from MA 40. He said he had bred and harvested THC plants and packaged them for research purposes, rather than trading in narcotics.

He said the company’s aim was to remove THC from the plants and reduce the THC content of the varieties to below 0.3 percent in order to produce industrial hemp. He said the operation was financed by selling cuttings.

The defendant claimed to have bred more than 90 varieties and earned up to 9,000 euros for an individual cutting through the genetics trade. He compared the work to winegrowing, where different grape varieties are cultivated.

He also said he had planned to develop essential oils from terpenes, components of the cannabis plant, comparing the process to the production of rose oils.

Defendant cites previous convictions

Hofstätter described his client as a professional. The 46-year-old has four previous convictions for drug offences, which he acknowledged in court. He said he had previously operated cannabis gardens but had changed direction after serving his last prison sentence.

He said he had since founded companies and developed tools for the cannabis industry. The Austrian Research Promotion Agency later supported him with a six-figure sum for the development of a hemp harvesting machine, he said.

He said he eventually took over an existing cultivation operation in the Liesing warehouse and made money by crossbreeding and refining cannabis varieties.

The defendant said the cuttings were sold to the highest bidder, with each sale entered into a mobile cash register. He claimed to have generated revenue of 3.55 million euros over 18 months and said the income had been recorded and taxed.