Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jul 2009
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Page: 9
Copyright: 2009 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: John Silvester
Note: John Silvester is a senior writer.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

CHASING THE DRAGON

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.
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