Thanh Nguyen: Ouyen crop house worker avoids jail

A Mildura man helped turn a strip of vacant shops into a major cannabis operation. But if it wasn’t for eagle-eyed locals it might have gone unnoticed.

Nguyen was given a two year corrections order. (Generic picture)

A Mildura man helped turn a strip of vacant shops into a major cannabis operation, a court has heard.

Thanh Nguyen, 44, was sentenced to time served and a two-year corrections order with 200 hours of community work in the Mildura County Court on Monday for a single charge of cultivating a narcotic plant.

The court heard Nguyen was a member of a Vietnamese drug trafficking network by Operation Sea-Eagle, a Drug Task Force investigation into the network which operated between October 2015 and May 2016.

In March 2016 Mildura police investigated drug cultivation in Ouyen and Tempy and found a group of vacant shops along the Sunraysia Highway where cannabis was being cultivated.

The shops had been privately leased in 2015.

Police swooped on the shops after locals noticed carpet and lino removed from the floors.

They also reported hearing loud noises, such as hammering and drilling coming from the shops during the day and night.

Police raided the shops on March 22, 2016, finding a large hydroponics set up and more than 100 cannabis plants.

Police also raided Nguyen‘s house in Tempy and found a list detailing plant supplement requirements and collected forensic evidence connecting Nguyen to the crop house.

During his police interview Nguyen said he had set up a cool room in the shops but claimed he did not know what the crop house was being used for.

He was released pending further enquiries but a warrant was issued for his arrest after he left Australia for Vietnam in April 2016.

Nguyen returned to Australia two times before being charged and bailed in January 2020.

He was then arrested in April when he failed to appear at court and remanded until December 2020.

He admitted to installing lights for the crop house and being paid for performing routine maintenance of the exterior of the buildings.

Nguyen pleaded guilty in August and Judge Duncan Allen sentenced him to 86 days served as pre-sentence detention and imposed a two year corrections order.

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