Quan van Dau: Inala tiler jailed for trafficking, deportation to follow

A Brisbane tradie who travelled to Australia from Vietnam seeking asylum, spending two years detained on Nauru, has been jailed and will be deported after his drug empire was revealed.

A Brisbane southwest tradie who travelled to Australia from Vietnam seeking asylum, spending two years detained on Nauru, will now be deported after he was jailed for a massive, sophisticated cannabis operation involving three cities.

Inala tiler Quan van Dau, 32, pleaded guilty in Ipswich District Court to five drug-related offences, relating to his operations in Ipswich, Brisbane and Logan.

They included, most seriously, trafficking in cannabis and two counts of possessing cannabis in excess of 500g.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing cash suspected of being the proceeds of a drug offence and possessing a mobile phone used to conduct his business.

The court heard the trafficking occurred between December 27, 2019 and April 13, 2020 at Inala and elsewhere.

His role was uncovered via a telephone intercept of another person of interest in a police operation targeting the sale and distribution of illicit drugs.

Dau supplied wholesale amounts of cannabis of up to 11kg to his contact and offered to supply amounts up to 90kg.

Inala drug trafficker Quan van Dau, 32. Picture: Facebook

He conducted his operation in a “very businesslike manner”, engaging an agent on commission to help move product among other actions.

Judge Dennis Lynch QC described Dau’s role in the trafficking operation as “almost daily involvement in the business”.

He helped facilitate distribution, negotiate prices, sought new customers, co-ordinated deliveries and the receipt of payment, inter alia.

“You were motivated by financial profit,” Judge Lynch said.

Part-way through Dau’s trafficking operation, on February 17, he was busted at Willowbank with an extraordinary 29.5kg of cannabis in his possession, as well as $1000 cash.

On that occasion, he was pulled over for a traffic stop which uncovered the illegal payload in cryovac packages.

Dau’s son was asleep in the front seat, the court heard.

On April 13, when the trafficking operation ended, Dau was busted with a further 11.5kg of cannabis at Browns Plains.

Defence counsel James Feely told the court Dau was a trained and practising accountant in Vietnam, before he fled to Australia in 2013 fleeing alleged political persecution.

Due to his “illegal” mode of arrival, Dau was placed in immigration detention on Nauru for two years until his release on a bridging visa, which expired on August 18.

Dau was in the process of challenging the expiry, but Mr Feely and Judge Lynch agreed it would be a moot point due to the certainty of his deportation following the current offending.

Mr Feely said Dau, who became a tiler upon his release from Nauru, was the sole breadwinner for his wife and three children.

“His family unit will be pulled apart,” Mr Feely said.

He argued for a shorter period of actual custody so Dau could return to Vietnam to “make money and alleviate pressure on (his family)”.

Judge Lynch sentenced Dau to serve 12 months of a five-year head sentence with the other four years suspended for a period of five years.