Soon Voon: Flinders International College student pleads guilty to drug trafficking

An international student dropped out of business classes and joined his Port Melbourne flatmate’s drug gang.

An international student will be released from jail and deported back home to Malaysia nearly two years after he was arrested over his role in a drug gang.

Soon Voon, 26, formerly of Port Melbourne, was on Friday jailed for a year on a raft of drug trafficking, weapons, stolen property and proceeds of crime charges.

Voon came to Australia in 2017 to study at Flinders International College, a business school on William St but dropped out the next year.

Judge Paul Lacava on Friday said Voon and two co-offenders, including former flatmate Marcus Shen, 29, were “were involved in what appears to be a well organized drug trafficking organization” before their arrests in 2019.

Shen has indicated he will plead guilty to drugs charges, while a third co-offender was last year jailed for four months and handed a 12 months community correction order.

Judge Lacava had been urged to hand Voon a harsh jail sentence to “send a clear message” to students who come to Australia on visas that they will be punished if they get involved in the drug trade.

But he said Voon, a Malaysian national, had already served nearly a year longer in jail than he deserved for his “relatively low level” but “persistent, street level trafficking of methamphetamine and MDMA”.

Soon Voon, 26, came to Australia to study at Flinders International College only to be jailed for becoming an ice dealer.

The court previously heard other members of Voon’s drug gang had held a man hostage in a city apartment over a drug debt.

Police began tailing the gang, and arrested Voon and two others after they went to a home in Balwyn in July 2019.

Voon has been behind bars ever since.

Judge Lacava said Voon became a drug dealer to fund his own habit and to make money to send back to his parents.

He said Voon had never been in trouble with the law before falling in with his “negative peer group” in Australia.

The government has cancelled Voon’s visa, and he will be taken to immigration detention and deported after he is released from jail on Tuesday.

Judge Lacava said backlogs in the legal system meant it was unfortunate Voon had already served longer in jail waiting for a court date than his actual sentence ended up being.

While on remand during the pandemic, Voon had only had occasional visits from Australian relatives.

Voon’s barrister, Richard Backwell, previously said his client, had done “a lot of growing up” since being arrested.