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In May 1943, Lim sent the first batch of Force 136 agents to Malaya to conduct the operation codenamed Gustavus. The operation aims to establish an espionage network in Malaya and Singapore to gather military intelligence about the Japanese forces to aid the British in planning their re-capture of the colonies from the Japanese, codenamed Operation Zipper. One of the Chinese provision shops in Ipoh, Jian Yik Jan, was used as an Allied espionage base. Communications between the agents were done by smuggling messages in empty toothpaste tubes, salted fish and diaries. Lim arrived in Malaya in November 1943 and used the alias Tan Choon Lim to avoid identification by the Japanese, claiming to be a businessman when he passed through checkpoints.
Operation Gustavus failed before the agents managed to achieve any results. An unknown communist guerrilla was captured by the Japanese in January 1944 and they revealed the existence of the Allied spy network operating on Pangkor Island. The Japanese launched a full-scale counter espionage operation on the island and by late March 1944, more than 200 Japanese soldiers had landed on Pangkor Island.
On March 24, the Japanese Kempeitai arrested a fisherman, Chua Koon Eng, at Teluk Murrek on the Perak coast. Chua was working on Pangkor Island when Li Han Kwang of Force 136 approached him and requested to use his boat for their communications. Chua told the Kempeitai what he knew when the Kempeitai threatened to kill civilians. Li was later captured by the Japanese and he confirmed Chua's accounts of Force 136 under torture and then began to feign cooperation with the Japanese in order to escape captivity.