Leeds students jailed for importing cannabis in £1m drugs operation

Two Leeds students have been jailed for three years after importing cannabis into the UK.

Jinshuo Dong, 24, and Jingshu Wong, 28, imported over £1 million worth of the Class B drug from Canada to Leeds via the postal service.

Both the men were international students from China studying in Leeds.

Parcels containing cannabis were posted to students in halls of residence, including the Iconic Glassworks on Cardigan Road and the Terry Frost Building on Whitelock Street.

Students inside the accommodations were recruited to receive the packages, which would then be collected by others participating in the drug operation, including Dong and Wong.

After initially denying any involvement and electing for a trial, the defendants changed their pleas and admitted conspiracy to evade a prohibition on the importation of a controlled drug.

Both the men have been held on remand since their arrest.

Dong and Wong appeared for sentencing at Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday 20^th November. The offence took place between 3^rd October 2023 and 3^rd May 2024.

63 parcels were intercepted by the authorities and linked back to the defendants, totalling over 108 kg of cannabis. The court heard that each parcel contained an average of 1.5 kg of cannabis.

Prosecutor Austin Newman said that experts predict as little as five per cent of imported drugs are uncovered. Considering the amount that has likely gone undetected, there have been suggestions the defendants’ involvement could amount to £20 million.

Mr Newman told the court: “Mr Dong and Mr Wong played an instrumental and significant part in the conspiracy both in terms of recruiting students and the subsequent collection of the parcels prior to distribution.”

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The importation scheme began to unravel for the defendants after border officials noticed packages of a similar size arriving from Canada, where cannabis is now legal, in October of last year.

An operation between Border Force and West Yorkshire Police, which has been praised by Judge Richard Mansell KC, who sentenced the men, led the two forces to the halls of residence where the packages were often delivered.

He said: “It was a very effective and well-executed operation that brought an end to a very lucrative skunk cannabis business.

“It was a novel method for flooding the market. The importation of cannabis previously in lorries from the continent has become far less prevalent.

“This method was novel and I commend the team for the investigation.”

via SWNS

In April and May 2024, police were alerted multiple times about incoming packages that Dong and Wong tried to collect. However, each time, the men left without the packages before authorities arrived.

CCTV footage from the student halls of residence later identified the two, leading to their arrest at Dong’s residence on East Parade in Leeds city centre.

Officers also visited Wong’s residence at Moda Living, New York Square, where a search uncovered a Prada jacket matching the one he was seen wearing on CCTV while trying to collect the parcels. They also found several letters addressed to individuals living in student accommodation in the city centre.

Their phones were confiscated during the arrest. Upon examination, the phones revealed numerous WeChat messages and conversations between Dong, Wong, and other unidentified individuals.

Mr Newman said the messages demonstrated that both the defendants were “significantly involved in the recruitment of students willing to allow their addresses to be used and the facilitation of the collection of the parcels received.”

The court heard that Dong believed his actions were “on the border of legitimate”

Mitigating for Dong, Joseph Hart said: “He failed to appreciate quite how illegal cannabis was because, having come from China to an environment where the smell of cannabis was rife on every street corner, he didn’t appreciate quite how serious this was and he found himself deeper and deeper and deeper involved.”

The claim that the defendants had not fully understood the legal implications of the drug operation was rejected by Judge Mansell, who said: “I wasn’t born yesterday and I’m sorry, they knew what they were about from the start.”

Hart said: “[Dong] led an enormously sheltered existence, he had not been in a city before and came to this country with no real friends and no real expectation of what life would be like in this country.”

Hart added: “He is sorry, he is remorseful.”

Mitigating for Wong, Shannon Woodley said: “He was a student studying his masters. This was clearly an operation preying on international students.

“When you look at the messages, he clearly doesn’t have an influence on others above him in the chain. You can see the person giving instructions. He has been given instructions on what to do.

“His father is a professor and his mother a civil servant. He is very close to his grandmother who is 92 and she is missing him very much. He is so ashamed he didn’t tell his family he had been arrested for a number of weeks and now is still too ashamed to tell his wider family.

“His mum is so upset, she wants him home as soon as possible. He came here to do a degree and got a 2:1 and went straight into his masters.”

The court heard neither Wong or Dong had any previous convictions.

Judge Mansell told the defendants they could face deportation after their sentence.

He added: “I do accept there was a certain degree of naivety in your becoming involved in this enterprise…You are relatively young men. You were both living thousands of miles from home in a foreign country.”

Featured image via SWNS