Perth Sheriff Court jailed Jiajie He, 30, for two and a half years on 9 November 2011 for his part in a cannabis factory run from a former American naval communications base at Forss, near Thurso.[1][2] He had been found guilty the previous month of being concerned in the supply of cannabis after police stopped a car at the Triangle services in Perth carrying two suitcases with 59 kg of cannabis bud, worth an estimated £73,750 once dried to 14.75 kg.[1][2]

Three other gang members had already been jailed for a combined ten and a half years at Inverness Sheriff Court on 24 August 2011: Wan Yue Lin, 44, received four and a half years for supply, Bo Chen, 26, three years, and the factory’s gardener Ah Bing Zheng, 32, three years for production.[3][1] Police had watched the gang ferry suitcases of cannabis from the base to Wick and south to Wales and England for over a year before raiding the site and seizing 570 plants valued at up to £250,000.[3][1] The three were to be automatically deported after their sentences.[3] The investigation, Operation Solstice, was run jointly by Northern Constabulary and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, whose head of investigations said the sentences showed commercial cultivation carried serious consequences.[1][2]