High-rise hustlers: drug dealers use Southbank and Docklands apartments to run illegal rackets

High-rise apartments offer great views and easy access to shops, bars and restaurants, but criminals who use them as hubs to deal drugs are running out of time as police close in.

Drug dealers are increasingly using apartments in Docklands (pictured) and Southbank.

Cashed-up drug dealers are using secure high-rise apartments in Southbank and Docklands to run clandestine trafficking operations.

New data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows drug dealing and trafficking offences in Southbank have more than tripled in the last five years.

Between April 2018 and March 2019, 63 offences were recorded compared to 28 in 2014/15.

Ten years ago there were only four.

Docklands recorded 36 offences for 2018/19 — a 10-year high, up from four in 2010.

Dealers, armed-to-the hilt with guns, tasers, knuckle dusters and machetes, prefer high-rise security to street level drug peddling.

It’s understood, the high-rise hustlers crave secure passcode entries and CCTV to shield them from thefts from other crooks.

However, their fortified apartments are not immune to police raids.

Victoria Police has several operations currently in play targeting dealers and traffickers at Southbank and the Docklands.

A Victoria police spokesperson said the drug taskforce operations are run in conjunction with the Australian Federal Police’s joint organised crime task force, Australian Border Force and the Australian Crime Intelligence Commission.

“Police (get regular support to) target illicit drug trafficking,” the spokesperson said.

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Recent operations have snared several major dealers peddling within high-rise apartments in the last year.

Former private school boy Cain Quah was handed a minimum ten year jail term last month after he was busted by police at his Southbank apartment with almost 3kg of “high purity” meth.

Police also found an unregistered handgun with the serial number scraped off, 20 hollow point bullets, butterfly knives, knuckle dusters and almost $90,000 in cash scattered around Quah’s apartment.

Cain Quah, 31, ran his drug operation from a Southbank apartment.

Ahn Tran was last month sentenced to a minimum three years after police raided his leased Southbank apartment and seized 329 grams of pure meth, 35 grams of pure MDMA, 74 grams of heroin and 104 grams of cocaine.

Police also found a money counting device, zip lock bags and digital scales while a 9mm Luger Tanfoglio semiautomatic handgun was found in Tran’s car along with three magazines and loose ammunition.

Brynne Edelsten’s ex-boyfriend Cemre Volkan was jailed last year after police found what a judge described as an “Aladdin’s Cave” of drugs, cash and weapons in his Docklands apartment.

Brynne Edelsten’s ex-boyfriend Cemre Volkan was busted at his Dockland’s apartment with an “Aladdin’s Cave” of drugs.

Police seized large amounts of drugs, including cocaine, MDMA, ketamine, testosterone, steroids, LSD and GHB

Police also seized a respirator face mask, digital scales, a machete, a hunting knife and knuckledusters.

The latest Crime Statistics Agency data also reveals North Richmond recorded only one drug

deal offence since 2015 while Southbank outranked even Springvale — once touted as the “heroin capital of Victoria” — which recorded 31 offences for 2018/19.

Weapons offences at Southbank and Docklands have also skyrocketed with 10-year highs — 106 offences — at each location. They have more than tripled in the last five years from 34 and 24 respectively.

Anyone with information about drug dealing should contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000 or crimestoppersvic.com.au.

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