Rugby Road, Dalton: Tobacco crop seized by police
Police and ATO investigators have swarmed a rural property near Goulburn, allegedly seizing 1.9 tonne of tobacco drying out. Three men are accused of running an illegal plantation.
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Three men have been charged after police and Australian Tax Office investigators swooped on a rural property about 60km from Goulburn, allegedly seizing 1.9 tonnes of illegal tobacco drying out.
Earlier this month, police received information that an illegal tobacco crop was being grown on a property in Dalton.
The tip-off led officers from the Hume Police District, investigators from the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Border Force-led Illicit Tobacco Taskforce to launch an investigation.
The investigations culminated on Thursday, when officers raided the Rugby Road property and allegedly uncovered the tobacco, with an estimated unpaid excise of $2.3 million and street value of $720,000.
Three men - aged 27, 29 and 59 - were arrested at the property and taken to Goulburn Police Station, where they were each charged with manufacture tobacco/seed/plant/leaf 500kg or above under the Taxation Administration Act 1953.
Two of them men, Muhammad Razali, 29 and Mohammad Shahudin, 27, faced Wollongong Local Court on Friday afternoon, where a police prosecutor revealed both the men’s visas were expired, but that they’d been granted Criminal Justice Visas to allow them to stay in the country to attend court.
Police will allege that both men were found inside a shed at the property during the raids, with the court hearing both allegedly admitted they received $170 cash per day for their work.
Neither Razali nor Shahudin applied for bail on Friday as Malayan interpreters needed to be arranged so the men could speak with their lawyers.
The pair will remain in custody until they reappear at Goulburn Court next week. Meantime, the 59-year-old man was granted conditional bail by police to appear at court in July.
In a statement, the ATO estimated that illicit tobacco costs the Australian community $647 million in lost revenue each year.
“It has been illegal to grow tobacco in Australia for more than a decade,” it read.
“If convicted, growing tobacco carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.”