A Whitehorse man could be serving a federal sentence until 2020 after entering a guilty plea to two charges of trafficking drugs.

In territorial court this morning, Jacob Lee, 47, entered the pleas to trafficking cocaine and trafficking marijuana.

Crown prosecutor Eric Marcoux and defence lawyer John Conroy proposed a sentence of eight years, minus the seven months Lee has spent in remand custody.

However, that term will be expanded because Lee was on parole at the time of his arrest last February and will have to complete his original sentence, which was set to expire in 2013, it was noted in court.

In bringing forward the facts of the case, Marcoux told the court that last February, Whitehorse RCMP had received information that Lee was bringing cocaine to the territory from Vancouver.

A day later, when officers came across Lee's white van on the Alaska Highway, they were able to obtain a search warrant and eventually seized 5.2 kilograms of cocaine and 100 lbs. of marijuana. The drugs were stored in the van in restaurant supplies, Marcoux said.

Cell phones and cash counters were also seized from the van.

The seizure has been described by the RCMP as the biggest in the Yukon's history.

At the time, Lee was serving parole on a sentence for conspiracy to traffic heroin that he had been convicted of in the United States.

The term had been transferred to Canada, Marcoux noted after filing Lee's criminal record with the court.

Pointing to a number of previous court cases, Marcoux suggested the range for sentencing would be between eight and 10 years.

He then put forward the joint submission for an eight-year term due to Lee's early guilty plea and his co-operation with police. Lee admitted his involvement to both police and his parole officer.

With his seven months in custody, it's proposed Lee's sentence then be seven years and five months for the cocaine trafficking and 3 1/2 years for the marijuana trafficking, to be served together with the previous sentence being served consecutively in a federal penitentiary.

Conroy noted his agreement with the proposed sentence. He then brought forward a number of letters for the court, one written by Lee, with other letters of support from family and co-workers at his restaurant.

Conroy noted that Lee is originally from Hong Kong, but moved to Vancouver in 1974. He became a Canadian citizen in the early 1980s and moved to the Yukon in 2001, establishing a restaurant at a local hotel.

His ex-wife lives in Vancouver and he has two children. He also has a common-law spouse in the territory and three step-children.

Lee has lived in the Yukon for the last six years under his parole conditions with no problems until his February arrest, Conroy said.

While his client regrets what he did, Conroy noted Lee was given the opportunity to make $75,000, which he planned to put toward his retirement, for transporting the drugs into the Yukon from Vancouver.

Lee was not involved in the distribution of the drugs, he said.

Visiting Judge Donald Luther was set to hand down Lee's sentence later this afternoon.