Chan Heng jailed over importing $89m of ice to Beverly Hills home
A man who helped import $89 million of ice in boxes of flatpack furniture from China to a southern Sydney rental home has failed in his bid to have his jail sentence cut short.
St George Shire Standard
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A man who imported $89 million of the drug ice hidden in 258 boxes of flat pack furniture from China to a Sydney rental home will be behind bars for up to 24 years after a Supreme Court appeal failed.
Chan Heng, 46, was sentenced to at least 15 years and nine months behind bars on June 29, 2018 in the District Court after pleading guilty to importing a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs in 2013 and 2014.
In 2018 the court heard Heng had a container of 258 boxes filled with flatpack furniture and methylamphetamine suspended in wax blocks delivered to a St Peters warehouse he leased in June 2013.
Heng’s co-accused Wai Man Wan later extracted the methylamphetamine from the wax at a Beverly Hills rental home with a pump supplied by Heng.
The court heard Heng then organised for his co-accused Ka Ho Choy to collect a sample of the methylamphetamine from Wan and deliver it to him for testing at a clandestine lab in Homebush West.
Heng was then arrested on July 9, 2013 and charged over the drugs – 73.6kg of pure methylamphetamine in total with an estimated street value of $89 million.
In 2018 Judge Paul Lakatos said Heng had performed a “significant role in directing the importation” and manufacturing the large quantity of drugs.
“He assisted finding Wan a rental property, he assisted finding a storage unit where the furniture was originally taken, he assisted liaising with a removalist to take the consignment to the St Peters location,” Judge Lakatos stated.
“Between April and May 2013, he communicated with someone with a view to supplying drugs to him and finally he used the offender’s van registered in Choy’s name, for the transportation of the drugs and various items.”
Heng’s ambitious appeal against the sentence’s severity was rejected in the Court of Criminal Appeal after three judges found Heng “knew a substantial amount of drugs was involved” in the elaborate importation scheme.
His co-accused Yuk Ho Kwok, Wai Man Wan and Ka Ho Choy also received minimum sentences of 15 to 17 years each in 2016.
Heng was already on parole after serving a minimum three years and nine months in prison when he was convicted for commercial prohibited drug supply.
“The Crown submits and I accept that it appears to be the case that a previous lengthy term of imprisonment, three and three-quarter years, did not act as a deterrent to this offender,” Judge Lakatos said in 2018.
“He wilfully breached his parole order.”
Heng will not be eligible for release until April 2030 at the earliest.