Jail for would-be heroin smugglers

THREE men who attempted to smuggle more than 33kg of pure heroin into Brisbane inside wooden church alters have today been jailed.

Heroin generic

THREE men who attempted to smuggle more than 33kg of pure heroin into Brisbane inside wooden church alters have today been jailed.

Duy Hoa Pham, 35, received a 12-year sentence for his part in the scheme, while co-accused Lam Hoang Tran, 32, was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Both men pleaded not guilty to attempting to import a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug, but a Brisbane Supreme Court jury found otherwise after an eight-day trial.

A third man, 50-year-old Tam Minh Dang, pleaded guilty to the charges and was also sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The altars arrived at the Port of Brisbane in a shipping container in October 2012, as part of freight delivered from Vietnam via Singapore.

Days later a routine examination was carried out at an Australian Customs facility, where officers discovered “irregularities” in the goods.

Almost 80 packages of heroin were later found inside with a wholesale value of $10 to $20 million.

Police replaced the white powder with a fake substance and sent the alters to their destination, later finding the trio covered in dust with the upturned and smashed wooden alters beside them on a Logan property.

In sentencing the men today, Justice Ann Lyons said they may not have been the brains behind the plan, but at some stage they became aware an illegal substance was inside the alters.

She described them as “willing workers assisting in the unpacking of the alters”.

Pham will be eligible for parole after serving seven years behind bars.

Tran will be eligible after six years, and Dang after serving 5.5 years in jail.