Logan barbers sent to jail for trafficking cocaine

A pair of barbers have been jailed for running a business selling wholesale amounts of cocaine, claiming they turned to crime when Covid-19 lockdowns forced them to shut their barbershop.

Two barbers have been jailed for running a business selling ”substantial” wholesale amounts of cocaine, claiming they turned to crime when Covid-19 lockdowns forced them to shut their barbershop.

Alexander Ly Vann, 32, and his uncle Landina Kao, 36, were in the Supreme Court in Brisbane before Chief Justice Helen Bowskill on Monday where they pleaded guilty to trafficking in cocaine at Crestmead, in Logan, over five months until November 2020.

The court heard the pair made 14 sales of cocaine over five months and that they were trafficking significant quantities of cocaine, because they were wholesaling to street-level dealers.

In one deal alone they sold five ounces, or 142g, of cocaine for $44,000 cash, the court heard.

Chief Justice Bowskill said that Vann and Kao showed an “ability to get a very substantial quantity” of cocaine, saying five ounces was larger than the total amount sold by many other drug traffickers.

“The purity is lower … but they are supplying ounces of cocaine at a time,” Chief Justice Bowskill noted, saying the offending was “at a fairly high level”.

Alexander Ly Vann. Picture, John Gass

Landina Kao. Picture, John Gass

Kao’s barrister submitted that his client turned to trafficking cocaine in 2020 when pressures from Covid-19 lockdowns and financial problems led him to “ramp up his use of cocaine”, where he met people who could supply him drugs.

Kao was using cocaine twice a week and sometimes during work hours as a barber, his barrister told the court.

“He and his friends would ‘smash a ball’ of cocaine quite easily at a party,” he told the court.

Chief Justice Bowskill told the pair that the Covid-19 lockdowns was “by no means an excuse” for turning to crime.

“Where on earth would our community be if during Covid people thought it was acceptable to get involved in unlawful criminal behaviour of selling drugs?” she asked the men.

“You had many other means available to you, to get through what was … a very difficult time,” she said.

Vann, a father of two, who has now changed his name to Alexander Kao, also worked at the barber shop but it closed six months after the pair were charged with trafficking.

His barrister submitted that he turned to crime because the landlord of the barbershop “was refusing to budge on a rent adjustments” during the Covid lockdown when the shop was shut.

“Of course its no excuse for someone then becoming involved in the supply of cocaine as a result,” the barrister told the court.

Vann most recently worked as an accessory fitter in a tyre store, a plasterer and as a barber from his home.

Kao has been working as a barber on Brisbane’s northside while awaiting sentencing.

Chief Justice Bowskill sentenced both men to a head sentence of five years’ jail, they will be eligible for parole in one year.