Principal of black market tobacco smuggling scheme jailed

A Queensland handyman who imported almost half a tonne of tobacco into the state from Vietnam just months after he walked free on a suspended sentence for cannabis trafficking, has been jailed.

Quang Van Nguyen, 60, appeared in the District Court in Brisbane on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to importing 493kg of loose leaf tobacco.

A Queensland handyman who imported almost half a tonne of tobacco into the state from Vietnam just months after he walked free on a suspended sentence for cannabis trafficking, has been jailed.

Quang Van Nguyen, 60, appeared in the District Court in Brisbane on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to importing 493kg of loose leaf tobacco on December 30, 2020 with the intention of defrauding the revenue.

The tobacco was in plastic wrapped packages hidden within bales of coconut fibre, shipped into Brisbane from Vietnam in a shipping container.

It was removed from the consignment by Australian Border Force before Nguyen picked up the delivery.

Judge Michael Burnett sentenced Nguyen to two years’ jail and told him he could not apply for parole until he was six months into his two year sentence.

Judge Burnett also activated the five-year suspended sentence that Nguyen was given on June 4, 2020 for wholesale cannabis trafficking, to be served concurrently.

“Within weeks of that sentence you commenced your involvement in this enterprise,” Judge Burnett told Nguyen, who was aided by an interpreter.

Judge Burnett described Nguyen’s offending as “not overly sophisticated” but still required quite a degree of planning.

His actions had the potential to cause a loss of revenue to the Commonwealth of about $855,000, the court heard.

This was made up of customs duty and GST on the sale of the loose tobacco.

However there was no “actual” loss because the tobacco was seized by the Australian Border Force before it reached Nguyen, who lived at Kippa-Ring in Brisbane’s north.

A further 2kg of tobacco was found at his home, hidden in coffee bags, when it was raided by police, and he was found to have avoided a further $3498 in customs duty on this amount.

Prosecutors submitted Nguyen was the “principal” of the criminal scheme and was due to make a profit of about $73,000 but Judge Burnett noted that text messages sent by Nguyen indicated he could have made a profit up to $130,000.

The court heard that the street value of the 493kg of loose tobacco was up to $123,000 if sold on the black market, and up to $172,000 if rolled into cigarettes.

In sentencing Judge Burnett told Nguyen that his crime was “not trivial” and he had effectively stolen from Australian taxpayers.

The charge carries a maximum jail term of ten years.

Nguyen’s defence counsel submitted that he had emigrated to Australia from Vietnam via Hong Kong in the 1980s.

He was born into a poor family during the Vietnam War, one of 13 children, and left school after grade four.

He was a conscript to the Vietnamese Army for five years from the age of 18, and had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder from his time in the country, the court heard.

More recently Nguyen has suffered from alcoholism and possible paranoid schizophrenia and arthritis.

He has been working as a volunteer handyman for the elderly parishioners at his local church.

Priest Bob Harwood from Holy Cross Catholic Parish in Redcliffe Peninsula gave a character reference to the court praising Nguyen’s work.