Murdered woman’s partner was ‘in conflict’ with organised crime gang: police

Police believe the partner of Thi Kim Tran, the 45-year-old woman murdered and set on fire in a car in southwest Sydney, was ‘in conflict’ with an organised crime gang in Victoria.

Thi Kim Tran, 45, was kidnapped from her Bankstown home before her body was found in the back of a burnt-out car in Beverly Hills. Photo: Facebook

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Police believe the partner of a woman murdered and set on fire in a car in southwest Sydney was in conflict with an organised crime gang, with a large-scale meth-lab raided by police on a rural property in Victoria.

NSW detectives investigating the murder of Thi Kim Tran, whose body is believed to have been found in a burnt-out car on Thursday in Beverly Hills, and the assault of her two children during a violent home invasion in Bankstown where she was kidnapped, believe her partner was “in a conflict” with an organised crime group in Victoria.

NSW Police Force Homicide Squad commander Joe Doueihi on Tuesday afternoon said the crime group was allegedly responsible for “large-scale” methamphetamine production, and the murdered woman’s partner had been travelling to Victoria for a “considerable period of time” while working with the gang.

Detective Superintendent Doueihi said Victoria Police had executed a search warrant at a vacant rural property two hours west of Melbourne, where they discovered the drug lab.

The body of Thi Kim Tran was found in a burnt-out car in Sydney’s south. Picture: 7NEWS

“We believe that motivation is a clear result of the male partner’s involvement with an organised crime network; it appears the male is in some form of conflict with members of that particular organised crime group,” Superintendent Doueihi said.

“We believe this organised crime group is based in Victoria, and is responsible for large-scale drug manufacture.”

Superintendent Doueihi said the “callous” and “brutal” attacks were “clearly targeted” and the mother and children were unaware of their father’s involvement with the criminal group.

“I can indicate the organised crime group, their workforce, consists of mainly Vietnamese males but there is no information or evidence to suggest the upper echelons of these organised crime groups are linked to Southeast Asian organised crime groups; we are still conducting inquiries in relation to that,” he said.

The burnt-out car being removed from Welfare Street in Beverly Hills after a body was found inside. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NewsWire

Detective Superintendent Doueihi said the couple’s eight-year-old son was still in an induced coma after he was assaulted with a baseball bat.

“We are hopeful that medical staff will bring him out of that induced coma today; unfortun­ately, we expect that that child may suffer some life-long complications as a result of these injuries,” he said.

“The 15-year-old male child was not physically assaulted during the course of this matter, however, he unfortunately witnessed his mother being violently attacked and kidnapped and his brother being severely assaulted.

“That has resulted in that child suffering some psychological injuries, and he’s being treated at hospital for the trauma that he’s experiencing,” he said.