Men used Leeds students to import cannabis into country through postal service

Two Leeds students recruited others to take in "parcels" containing 1.5kg of cannabis in a sophisticated operation that unravelled after border force officials became suspicious.

Jinshuo Dong and Jingshu Wong have been jailed for three years for their part in the operation, which saw them have parcels of the class B drug imported from Canada to a number of student accommodations in Leeds, where they would then collect it.

They both appeared for sentencing for the charge of conspiracy to evade a prohibition in an importation of a controlled drug at Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday, November 20 where prosecutor Austin Newman said: "The offence took place between the third of October 2023 and third of May 2024. In summary, these two defendants are alleged to be participants in a conspiracy between themselves and others to import in the UK quantities of cannabis via the postal system.

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"The prosecution's case that that parcels of cannabis were sent from Canada to the UK, addressed most often to Chinese students living in various student accommodations located around the Leeds area. These were then collected by others including these two defendants."

The court heard the parcels contained on average 1.5kg of the drug each. Mr Newman said: "The prosecution suggest 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."

It was said the operation came apart after border force officials became suspicious in October last year. They noted that parcels were being sent through in the post to Chinese students living in the Leeds area. Mr Newman said: "They went on to intercept just over 100 parcels and examine the contents, which turned out to be cannabis."

Border force officials liaised with police, who investigated the parcels in Leeds. The prosecutor said: "They went on to intercept a number of parcels after they had been delivered but before being collected. Staff members at various locations were asked to report deliveries or any attempts to collect deliveries for residents."

It was said officers intercepted two parcels at Iconinc student accommodation in Cardigan Road and the Terry Frost building in Whitelock Street. Both Dong and Wong visited the accommodations and were met by staff who asked them to wait, but they left both times.

Mr Newman said: "On second of May this year, police went to Mr Dong's home at East Parade and present at the address were the defendants and another group of individuals not involved in the investigation. They were arrested and their mobile phones were seized and an amount of cannabis and a jacket similar to that he was seen wearing on CCTV."

Police also attended Wong's home in Moda Living, New York Square and during a search recovered a Prada jacket he had been seen wearing on CCTV footage when attempting to collect the parcels and various letters addressed to people who were residents at student accommodation in the city centre.

Mr Newman said the phones were examined and they held a number of WeChat messages and conversations between Dong and Wong and other unidentified persons. He said: "These messages demonstrate that both of the defendants were significantly involved in the recruitment of students willing to allow their addresses to be used and facilitation of the collection of the parcels received."

The court heard the estimated street value of the average weight of 1.5kg of cannabis within the 63 parcels they participated in was over £1,083,500. The wholesale value of the drugs was estimated to be at least £300,097,000

Both Wong and Dong remained silent during their police interviews.

Mitigating for Dong, Joseph Hart said a letter from him and his mother had been handed to the court. He said Dong had a "humble" and "sheltered" childhood in rural China before moving to the UK to study. He said: "His mum and dad worked very hard to send him to university and he was their golden child. He had led an enormously sheltered existence and had not been in a city before and he came to this country with no real friends and no real expectation of what life would be like in this country."

Mr Hart said Dong was "lonely" and was "desperate to make friends" and found himself involved with gambling. He said: "He was offered an opportunity to make a little money."

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The court heard Dong believed what he as doing was "on the border of legitimate," which His Honour Judge Mansell KC rejected. He said: "I wasn't born yesterday and I'm sorry, they knew what they were about from the start."

Mr 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 court heard neither Wong or Dong, 24, had any previous convictions on their records.

Mitigating for Wong, 28, 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."

His Honour Judge Mansell told them: "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."

The judge said both Wong and Dong could face deportation after their sentence.

Following the sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Michael Herbert, who led the investigation, said: “These men were involved in what was clearly a very significant criminal enterprise importing cannabis into the UK on a huge scale.

“While we recognise that they were relatively ‘foot soldiers’ in what is obviously a much larger criminal network, they had active and significant roles in this operation that was bringing large amounts of drugs to the streets of Leeds and the sentences they have received reflect that.

“Cannabis remains a controlled drug in the UK and its illegal supply fuels other crime and anti-social behaviour in our communities. The criminal groups who trade in it at this level are invariably involved in other types of serious and organised crime and the violence that accompanies it and we will continue to work alongside our partner agencies to target those involved.”

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