A 70-year-old St Albans man caught importing the drug “ice” with a street value of almost $7 million has been sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Keng Hong Hew pleaded guilty in the County Court of Victoria on November 2 to importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug (methamphetamine).
Judge Jeanette Morrish said the gravity of Hew’s offending was “high” and there was little mitigation for sentencing apart from his guilty plea, age and dependence on insulin to control diabetes. Australian Federal Police posing as staff members at a Tullamarine freight business arrested Hew on January 16, 2015 when he came to collect a consignment of 96 cans of bamboo shoots, 15 of which were found to contain methamphetamine.
The arrest led police to link Hew to another two importations of the drug – in October, 2014, and January 13 last year – in which the drug was concealed in fake glass rocks and beauty product packaging.
In the three importations, more than five kilograms of pure methamphetamine with a potential wholesale value of about $1.4 million and a street value of more than $6.9 million were brought into the country.
When Hew was arrested, he was in possession of a water bill for a St Albans, property. Police executed a search warrant at the address and found two fake New South Wales driver licences with Hew’s photo, 24 grams of methamphetamine, a number of clip-seal bags and a set of electronic scales.
Judge Morrish said the venture was “well organised and highly sophisticated”.
“Planning had gone into the method of importation and means of disguising the true participants in the business,” she said. “The system was designed to both maximise the chances of the methamphetamine slipping through border control undetected and to distance the true culprits in case the true nature of the importation was discovered.”
The court was told Hew had been born in Malaysia. His family was “very poor” and he attended primary school for only two years.
While Judge Morrish said he played a “vital role”, he was not sharing in the profits of the trafficking. He was paid between $1000 and $2000 for each consignment.
He will serve a minimum term of eight years before becoming eligible for parole.
