A businessman has been jailed for four years after he admitted concealing evidence of a £320,000 drug farm.
Police officers discovered more than 660 cannabis plants when they raided the Coupar Angus flat leased by takeaway boss Tim Chan in December 2012.
The “large scale cultivation” featured sophisticated lighting and ventilation systems and was being managed by Yan Ping He, 26, who was jailed for two years and three months in 2013.
He had effectively been acting as “gardener” for those behind the cannabis farm.
Neighbours became suspicious of regular night-time activity at the flat; of the visitors of “Chinese origin” coming and going at odd hours, loading and unloading large boxes; and, finally and most tellingly, of the smell of cannabis lingering in the town’s Athole Street.
One person apparently oblivious to the illegal activity was Chan, 56, who had rented the ground floor restaurant and was renovating it.
Stricken by financial woes, he was said to have sublet the accompanying four-room flat above to a group of “Chinese students”.
While he returned to north Wales to manage a restaurant in Llandudno, the new occupants set up the cannabis farm.
Chan whose family lives in Coupar Angus and who has successfully run an eatery in the town in the past was said to have finally become aware of the drugs some months later when his daughter and a tradesman went to the flat to measure up for repairs and stumbled across the farm.
The businessman denied all knowledge of the farm and, after “making further inquiries” from Wales, asked the pair to keep silent “for a month”, by which time he assured them it would be gone.
Chan claimed that he and his family had been threatened by those behind the drug farm so did not call the police.
Matters eventually overtook all involved, however, when “confidential intelligence” saw the property raided by police officers in December 2012.
Chan, c/o the Jade Garden Restaurant, Conway Road, Llandudno, admitted knowingly permitting the premises above Rudy’s Chinese Takeaway in Athole Street to be used to produce cannabis between November 27 and December 16 2012.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told him: “You are being sentenced on the basis that on November 27 2012, and until December 16 that year, you knew full well that a cannabis cultivation was operating in the premises you were subletting for a rent of just £120 per week.
“Once you became aware of the operation, you actively encouraged others to avoid contacting the authorities to enable harvesting and distribution of this large crop to take place.
“Had it not been for other parties, this large crop would have been made available on the open market.”