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Two men involved in a multi-million pound drug operation will be taken to a detention centre before being deported to Malaysia, a judge at Craigavon Crown Court has said.

Tan Yang Zhe, with an address at Arizona Street in Belfast, was sentenced to 44 months on Tuesday, with half the sentence to be served in custody and half on licence.

The 32-year-old has already served the custodial element of the sentence but the judge said that instead of being released, he will be taken to an immigration centre before being deported.

Sentenced alongside Zhe was co-accused Chong Keong Lim, 59, with an address on the Upper Waterloo Road in Larne.

The judge said, given his somewhat lesser role of courier, she was imposing a 40-month sentence.

As Lim had also been in custody since January of last year and so had already in effect served the sentence, he will now be taken from Maghaberry Prison to a detention centre before the pair are deported back to Malaysia.

At an earlier hearing, Zhe and Lim pleaded guilty to several offences relating to the possession, importation, conspiring to import and supply of class B cannabisbetween 31 May 2022 and 4 February last year.

Zhe, who had a “mixed role of courier and manager” admitted 27 offences, drug courier Lim entered guilty pleas to 17 offences.

Two other men, 36-year-old Justin Soon from Portallo Street in Belfast and Chue Yuan, 58, with an address c/o HMO Wormwood Scrubs in London, also entered guilty pleas to similar offences but they were not before the court on Tuesday.

The judge told the court Zhe was first arrested on 24 January last year when police stopped and searched him as he was walking along the Springfield Road.

Hidden inside his backpack was a kilogram of cannabis as well as two mobile phones and two sets of keys.

When police used one of those sets to search Zhe’s bedroom, they seized a further 2.9kgs of herbal cannabis.

That search also gleaned documents relating to tenancy agreements of numerous rental properties, the judge said.

The court heard that one of those properties was the destination for a package of 6kgs of cannabis which had been seized by Leicester police at East Midlands Airport.

Meanwhile an examination of the phones seized showed that Zhe had been involved in supplying cannabis and Judge McColgan said six of the 17 charges of supplying cannabis, according to the messages on the phone, amounted to around 30kgs of the class B drug.

On the men’s respective roles, the judge said Zhe had played a “mixed role” in that as well as a “managerial role” in renting domestic and commercial properties, he was also a courier who met customers "to personally complete drug transactions”.

She said he was paid a “fixed salary” for his role, between £600 to £800 a week and that both men “lent themselves to the large scale commercial operation involving the distribution of multi-kilo packages of cannabis in the postal system".