Chasing the dragon
John Silvester
July 27, 2009
Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was arrested in Singapore in 2002 carrying 396 grams of heroin and was hanged in 2005. Photo: AP
Police seeking to stem the flow of heroin into Australia say it is just a matter of time before another drug courier is executed overseas. John Silvester reports.
IN AN imported suit and designer sunglasses, the Vietnamese man is at once young and flashy and the epitome of self-styled personal success. He has that cool confidence suggestive of a young executive on the make — or a luxury car dealer before the global financial crisis rearranged the world.
But the young man doesn't work for a company — at least not one found on any Corporate Affairs register. He is a recruiter — in more conventional corporate terms a "headhunter" — who works in Melbourne's western suburbs with a tempting pitch. His job is persuading the gullible that he can offer them the chance of a lifetime that includes money, travel and adventure. He tells his marks what they want to hear — that his system is foolproof. He will buy them a return ticket to Vietnam and they can visit friends and relatives while being paid handsomely for a working holiday.
All they have to do is stop at a nondescript property in Ho Chi Minh City and pick up between three and five 80-gram capsules of heroin — each carefully pre-wrapped in a double coating of condoms and balloons. Then an assistant will help them insert the pellets into body cavities before they make the 10-hour return flight to Melbourne.
Once they arrive with the cargo each recruit will be paid $6000 per pellet — a bottom line of $24,000 per load. Aged 22, the young man is a self-taught expert at identifying people with financial problems, often brought about through uncontrolled gambling habits. He is an equal opportunity employer discriminating neither by age or sex. His potential employment pool ranges from men in their early 20s to women in their mid-60s.
And there is no shortage of candidates, with police saying they have identified more than 100 who have made the trip. They also say that with unemployment on the rise and borderline businesses on the precipice, the number of willing recruits will increase.
The recruiter is well briefed. His network includes loan sharks who specialise in hooking on to problem gamblers. Those in debt see the trip as a get-out-of-jail card. For many it will be exactly the opposite. What the recruiter neglects to mention is the opportunity of a lifetime may mean exactly that — life.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 25 Australians are now held in Vietnamese prisons for heroin smuggling. Five are to stand trial while 20 have been sentenced to death or to jail terms varying from 20 years to life. All are of Vietnamese descent and eight are from Victoria.
Since 2003, the Federal Government has successfully made pleas to the Vietnamese President to have seven death sentences commuted.
Senior Foreign Affairs officials say it is likely that an Australian caught smuggling drugs in Vietnam will eventually be executed.
A DFAT briefing paper states, "We cannot presume to always be successful in arguing against the death penalty for Australians, particularly when Vietnamese nationals are being executed for the same crimes."
There are strong indications Vietnamese authorities are beginning to tire of the perceived double standards, particularly since some Western governments do not argue against Vietnam's death penalty.
Bui Tai Huu, a US student from Long Beach City who was wanted in Victoria over a murder in Springvale, was executed in Vietnam after he was caught with heroin.
An Australian woman, Jasmine Luong, 33, from Sydney narrowly avoided death by firing squad when a final plea from the Australian Government saved her life.
Luong was found guilty of attempting to smuggle 1.55 kilograms of heroin into Melbourne in her shoes and luggage. Her punishment had been upgraded after she appealed against her life sentence for heroin trafficking.
Some South-East Asian governments have refused to listen to pleas for clemency. Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van was executed in Singapore in December 2005 after he was caught three years earlier with 396 grams of heroin at Changi Airport in 2002, travelling from Cambodia to Australia.
And in 1986 Australian drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were hanged in Malaysia.
The head of the Victoria Police's drug taskforce, Detective Inspector Doug Fryer, believes it is inevitable that Australians will be executed in Vietnam for heroin trafficking.
DFAT has become so concerned at the number of Australian citizens arrested in Vietnam on drug runs that it conducted an education campaign warning of the risks.
The campaign, which ran for six months in Melbourne and Sydney, targeted the groups most likely to be recruited by the syndicates. It included advertisements on SBS, ethnic radio and in Vietnamese newspapers.
While local Vietnamese leaders welcomed the program, the drug rings have found no shortage of recruits.
Police have identified seven heroin syndicates with bases in Melbourne that use the same supplier in Vietnam.
Often the syndicates will place several couriers on one flight, working on the basis that if one is caught, another will pass through customs with the packages. The couriers are expendable. The line of supply is not.
On June 4, 2006, Australian Federal Police arrested Vietnam Airlines pilot Van Dang Tranas at Sydney International Airport with more than $540,000 concealed in his cabin luggage.
The Australian Crime Commission money-laundering Taskforce Gordian found that he had smuggled $6.5 million out of Australia in less than 12 months. He pleaded guilty and in 2007 was sentenced to a minimum of two years' jail.
It is alleged that crime syndicates used the Long Thanh Money Transfer Company in Footscray to launder more than $93 million.
But for the big seven heroin rings, not every trip is flushed with success. Sometimes the couriers lose their nerve mid-flight and dispose of their expensive cargo via the plane toilet.
Police have grabbed couriers at Melbourne Airport only to find they have become drug-free — apparently in mid-air.
Detective Inspector Fryer said the syndicates operating in Melbourne are primarily using the same heroin wholesaler from Ho Chi Minh City.
The bullet-shaped pellets come prepared in standard form — with condom and balloon wrapping and filled with 80 per cent pure heroin.
Australian Crime Commission figures show the number of heroin seizures at the Australian border increased from 300 in 2005-06 to 392 in 2006-07. The weight seized increased by 79 per cent from 45.6 kilograms to 81.7 kilograms over the same period.
The ACC found that "South-East Asia remains the primary point of embarkation for consignments of heroin to Australia and is expected to remain so for the immediate future".
Police say that a worldwide increase in opium poppy production, coupled with an economic downturn, could lead to further increases in demand and supply for heroin in Australia.
In February 2009 the ACC reported: "There has also been a gradual increase in reported heroin availability."
Detective Inspector Fryer says that due to police intelligence gathering the drug taskforce was devoting more resources to investigating heroin syndicates.
He says that in the past 12 months police had arrested key figures connected with four of the seven known Melbourne syndicates. "There is no doubt there are others still operating," he says.
A taskforce made up of drug taskforce detectives, Customs and Border Protection officers, Australian Federal Police and Australian Crime Commission investigators has been set up to target the seven known syndicates and to identify others that have moved into the lucrative trade.
One of the syndicates has recruited 40 couriers and a second has 35 prepared to make regular trips to Vietnam to collect heroin.
International departure records show that some of the couriers have made five trips in the past six months.
And some of the more experienced ones have studied Customs procedures to minimise the chances they will be selected for a search.
Police say that on a flight of 300 passengers there can be several mules working for different syndicates.
On February 28, police arrested four drug smugglers from one Melbourne flight. The following day another two were arrested when they flew into Perth. They had planned to fly to Melbourne on a domestic flight.
Detective Inspector Fryer has taken the unusual approach of issuing a public warning that known couriers will be arrested and searched if they make any further trips.
But he also says that as police are sharing intelligence with the Vietnamese authorities, the couriers are risking arrest before they return and could be executed.
THE main organisers usually insulate themselves from the business, but one senior member narrowly escaped a death penalty due to a spur-of-the-moment shopping spree. She had just left the hotel room at the Hai Long 2 Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City shortly before a police raid. Two of her couriers, a woman, 28 and a man, 25, were not so lucky and were arrested in possession of 20 heroin pellets containing nearly 1.5 kilograms of the drug. They are yet to face trial, but are likely to face the death penalty.
According to Vietnamese police, one confessed to smuggling 18 packages of heroin to Australia in previous trips. The Melbourne woman, although suspected of being the controller, could not be charged and fled back to Australia. She has since been arrested in Melbourne.
For the heads of the syndicates, the profits are staggering. Each time a courier arrives undetected in Melbourne with four pellets, the syndicate stands to make more than $130,000 if it on-sells at a wholesale rate. At street prices and purity, the profit would be more than $700,000.
No wonder one female suspect was seen living the life of a high roller at an Australian casino. Many people play card games at casinos, but few can afford $50,000 a hand.
John Silvester is a senior writer.
The Age
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