Albanian drug police mistakenly jailed five villagers for two weeks after busting them for growing cannabis.

A court found the farmers were actually growing industrial hemp for export to the United States.

"I never imagined I would be pictured in the newspapers as the head of an international drug ring. It's one of those things that makes you cry and laugh at the same time," says Martin Pellumbi of the Shkrel area farmers' association, to Reuters

Interior Minister Sokol Olldashi announced on television that the police had seized a ton of marijuana. His office had no comment on Monday.

It was not the first time that Albanian police had made such a mistake. In the past five years, they had once before arrested hemp growers under the assumption they were growing cannibis.