Two men jailed for £9m cannabis smuggling plot between Manchester and Belfast
The drugs were hidden in wooden flooring
Last updated 18th Aug 2025
A Manchester gang who ran a major cannabis smuggling operation between the city and Northern Ireland have been jailed after being caught hiding drugs in wooden flooring.
Yudong Ouyang, 32, and Gary Hon, 26, cultivated large-scale crops of cannabis in Manchester before transporting them by HGV to Belfast, where they knew the drugs could fetch a “premium price,” the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Smuggling through wooden pallets
Between June 2019 and February 2020, the pair used encrypted messaging platforms in Mandarin to plan shipments. They hollowed out pallets of flooring to conceal cannabis and shipped them using an unsuspecting legitimate agent.
Investigators discovered up to 38 deliveries were made over nine months, with each pallet declared at 1,200 kilograms despite a standard weight of 1,000 kilograms. It is believed 50 kilograms of cannabis was hidden in each load.
One intercepted message read: “I put the d(drug) money on me, not in the car, so the sniffing dog could not get the smell.”
The NCA said Ouyang often sent photos of cannabis farms and was linked by fingerprints and invoices to a raided site. Both men also organised returning pallets to England to reuse the secret compartments.
Arrests and sentencing
Hon was arrested in February 2022, while Ouyang was detained in December 2023. At Manchester Crown Court, Ouyang pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class B drugs in January 2024, and Hon admitted the same charge on 25th June 2025.
On Monday, Ouyang was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. Hon received three years and one month.
‘Key players’ in organised crime
Barry Vinall, NCA operations manager, said: “Ouyang and Hon were key players in this large scale cannabis supply operation, producing up to £9 million in profit and working closely with a wider group.
“They attempted to make their operations appear legitimate but investigators unravelled their vast communications and movements showing they would often transport pallets back across to England so they could be reused for further importations.
“This organised crime group targeted Northern Ireland as their market where they knew their drugs would attract a premium price. Gangs like those run by Ouyang and Hon fuel an industry that sees people transported to the UK to work illegally in cannabis farms and taking action against those involved in these crimes is a priority for the NCA.”
Linked convictions in Belfast
Two other men, Luis Ieong and Ming Liang He, were arrested in Belfast in January 2020 after police stopped them with almost 11 kilograms of cannabis in their car. CCTV showed they had visited a storage unit where hollow flooring boxes were kept.
A further 35.5 kilograms of cannabis and £70,000 in cash were seized at the site. Both men were sentenced to 13 months in prison in December 2020.
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