Nadim Kansaan, Ali Khalil, Mohamad Masri sentenced over tobacco smuggling

A crew which illegally imported almost 10 million cigarettes and more than 7000kg of tobacco have been sentenced thanks to the work of daring undercover cops.

A meeting in the carpark of Bankstown Centro shopping centre was the beginning of the end for four family men, all players of a major tobacco smuggling ring which dodged about $16 million in taxes.

Nadim Mohammad Jamel Kansaan, 36,Ibraham Al Am Ali, 41, Ali Khalil, 23, and Mohamad Masri, 34, all walked freely into the District Court on Friday.

However, only one walked out the same doors.

A police strike force, launched by the joint counter terrorism team in 2017, used three undercover cops to bring down the sophisticated criminal syndicate which used encrypted Ciphr mobile phones, international bank accounts and Bunnings car parks to operate the illegal scheme.

Between July 2018 and April 2019, the syndicate took part in the supply and distribution of more than 7000kg of molasses tobacco, typically smoked in hookah pipes, and arranged the illegal importation of 9.5 million cigarette sticks.

The cigarettes, with a black market value of $7 million, arrived inside a shipping container from Dubai with Kansaan and Khalil involved in physically moving the gear to a Chullora storage unit.

The agreed facts reveal the syndicate’s early origins centred at a carpark in Rydalmere where Kansaan and his co-offenders would meet regularly with the undercover police officer for the car boot transfer of illegally imported tobacco.

Khalil was at the car park once, on July 18, 2018, to hand the cop an envelope with $20,000 cash on Kansaan’s instructions.

Al Am Ali attended a number of occasions, with Masri joining the meeting on October 16 where the sale of 2130kg of illegally imported molasses tobacco took place.

Mohamad Masri. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

According to court documents, Kansaan once told the undercover cop “I don’t want anyone to know we do business”.

When he moved the imported cigarettes between storage units in March 2018, Kansaan “took a photo of himself … with the boxes of cigarettes and stated ‘f**k the police’,” the agreed police facts state.

The Liverpool man ultimately paid the undercover operative $1.2 million, with about $220,000 of the amount being in cash.

The court heard Al Am Ali, who was addicted to cocaine when involved in the syndicate and had been recently working as an Uber driver, made a paltry $4500 from his involvement. He was sentenced to two years jail for possessing about 1900kg of the smuggled tobacco. He will be eligible for release on parole in February next year.

Kansaan, who illegally migrated to Australia in 2013 and recently worked as a traffic controller, received a six-year jail sentence for the possession of the 7214kg of smuggled tobacco and 9.5 million illegally imported cigarette sticks. He will be eligible for parole January next year.

Khalil, who was waiting for the court outcome before marrying his fiance, was sentenced to two years jail for helping shift the illegally imported the cigarettes and aiding Kansaan’s possession of 210kg of molasses tobacco. He will be eligible to be released from prison on a recognisance order next April

Masri was sentenced to 12 months jail for possessing about 2130kg of the molasses tobacco but walked free with his index fingers pointed at the cameras, after agreeing to a recognisance order to be of good behaviour.