Lebanon's drug kingpin watched his workers sink their spades deep into the piles of marijuana that banked the walls of the factory, throwing the chopped plants onto clunking machines that sifted out the top quality hash that would soon be sold on London streets.
The secret processing plant - an unremarkable cow barn in its exterior - stands on a hillside overlooking the remote fertile plains of the Bekaa valley whose produce, cannabis, is now at the heart of a multi-million dollar drug trade.
For years Ali Nasri Shamas and other Lebanese farmers saw their illegal crops burned by the government. But in the past two summers, as the army focused on the violent fallout of the war in neighbouring Syria, their plants have flourished unmolested.
Security forces have refrained from destroying the industry of the hash growers who, already armed to the teeth, could be useful partners in keeping control of this tribal part of the country should the its instability become full-blown conflict.
The farmers too have grown in confidence: they have stockpiled AK47s, ammunition, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades and rallied around Mr Shamas, who has become the unofficial representative defending their trade.