Two Chinese nationals who smuggled cannabis worth £9 million from Manchester to Northern Ireland hidden in wooden flooring have been sentenced following a National Crime Agency investigation.
Yudong Ouyang, 32, and Gary Hon, 26, living in Manchester, were cultivating large crops of cannabis in the city and using HGVs to transport it by ferry to Northern Ireland where they knew they could charge a premium price.
The pair were using encrypted messaging platforms between June 2019 and February 2020 where they organised secreting the drugs in large wooden pallets
The inner pallets of flooring were hollowed out to create a void where they could hide the drugs before organising shipping to Northern Ireland using a legitimate shipping agent who was unaware of the illegal commodity.
NCA investigators found there were up to 38 deliveries made by the group from Manchester to Belfast in the nine-month period.
Ouyang and Hon sent messages in Mandarin and translations showed that the contents discussed the cannabis trade, warehouse rentals and travel to Northern Ireland.
Other messages discussed how to hide the drugs and how they could secrete money when they returned to England. One stated: “I put the d[drug] money on me, not in the car, so the sniffing dog could not get the smell”.
Phone evidence also showed Ouyang regularly sent photos of cannabis, cannabis farms, or selfies of him at the farms to the gang. His fingerprints and an invoice in his name were found at a cannabis farm raided as part of the operation.
Officers pieced together messages and phone calls with CCTV movements that showed how the group were in touch with each other before attending storage units to move pallets.
Despite attempting to appear as a legitimate business, investigators found that pallets were occasionally shipped back from Northern Ireland to Manchester and other locations in England where it is believed the hollow void could be used again for a further export.
The standard weight of a pallet of the type used by Ouyang and Hon was 1000 kilos. Evidence showed declarations made by the group always weighed the pallet at 1200 kilos, though it is believed 50 kilos of cannabis was moved in each delivery.
Contact details on invoices from the legitimate storage businesses were also linked back to the men.
Hon was arrested by NCA officers in February 2022. Ouyang was arrested in December 2023.
Ouyang and Hon appeared at Manchester Crown Court. Ouyang pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class B drugs in January 2024 and Hon pleaded guilty to the same offence on 25 June 2025.
Hon received a prison sentence of three years and one month and Ouyang received three years and six months’ imprisonment.
