Source: Courier Mail (Australia) Contact: Saturday, August 29, 1998 Author: Sara Bradford VIETNAMESE GROUP CRACKS HEROIN 'CODE OF SILENCE' THE Vietnamese community had led a successful suburban battle in forcing major heroin syndicates from their traditional base in Brisbane's west, a community leader claimed yesterday. John Vu, a settlement officer working for the Department of Immigration and welfare officer for the Vietnamese Community of Australia, said he was "proud" to announce Darn and Inala were no longer Queensland's heroin capitals. He attributed the successful campaign to the establishment of Vietnamese liaison officers who dissolved the community's "code of silence" and acted as go-betweens for the Vietnamese community and police. "We believe if we are not able to stop crime than sooner or later the whole community suffers from a bad image," he said. Mr Vu's comments follow major seizures of high-grade heroin in the last month as a result of police raids on two Vietnamese groups based in Brisbane. In one raid police say they smashed a major Vietnamese crime syndicate and seized almost $1 million worth of uncut heroin front addresses in Runcorn and Indooroopilly. On the same day, violence broke out on the streets of Indooroopilly with a group of eight men attacking and slashing each other with machetes, butcher knives and swords. Two people have been arrested on charges relating to the incident. One of the men, who had surgery on bone-deep cuts to his arm, refused to file a complaint with police. "When it happened, we made no excuse, but we just want to make it clear that the effort of the Vietnamese community as a whole is to try and minimise these things from happening again," Mr Vu said yesterday. He said the crime situation began in Darra during the second year of the recession in the late 1980s. Mr Vu said with high unemployment in the community, crime was a lucrative attraction to those families already struggling with the language barrier. He said the heroin supplied to Queensland from the infamous Sydney suburb of Cabramatta did not stem from gang connections. "The Cabramatta link is family and so gang connections should be corrected to family connections and that's why we have three generations of one family involved in the drug raid this week," Mr Vu said. A combination of suburban environment and an insular Vietnamese community provided a cultural isolation which allowed drug syndicates to flourish in Brisbane outer-western areas. But, in 1995 the community had enough and formed a working group to break down the barriers that stood between them and the law, Mr Vu said. One of their first moves was to campaign for a Vietnamese-speaking liaison officer and encourage people to speak out. "Language is always a barrier so in many cases they like to talk to us first and then we contact the police and the police take it from there," Mr Vu said. "We predicted the development of crimes in the area and then we assisted the police with that information." Mr Vu said he and the community raised the issue of youths being recruited by drug syndicates with police last year. The community were aware that unscrupulous dealers used "lenient" juvenile laws and a lack of criminal history with police to approach high school students and youths to sell drugs. "We warned the Vietnamese parents that if they don't give their kids money and then they all of a sudden have luxury items like a new mobile phone, then you have to start to worry, you have to start to care," Mr Vu said. It was clear the community would no longer tolerate crime in their community. "For instance, Sydney thinks that we (Brisbane) are in their backyard and they come here to avoid being arrested." Mr Vu said their efforts had succeeded in pushing drugs out of Darra, Inala, Carob Park and were now concentrating on Goodna. - --- Checked-by: Don Beck