Vietnamese crime syndicates shifting operations to huge Wide Bay drug farms

Major marijuana farms set in the same corner of Queensland are being used to fund drug crime of the highest level and gang leader lifestyles most could “only dream of”, rare police insight reveals. VIDEOS, PHOTOS.

Rare insight into the setup of Queensland’s biggest drug farms and the international gangs behind them can be revealed as the Wide Bay emerges as destination of choice for nearly half of the major operations uncovered in the past year.

The trend was confirmed on Thursday by Inspector Bradley Phelps – one of the top cops leading the fight against Vietnamese gangs and their stranglehold on vulnerable foreign recruits and the drug trade destroying communities across the state.

He explained that of the seven drug operations disrupted in recent months by Operation Victor Economy and Victor Alon (police investigations targeting organised crime syndicates throughout Australia) three were located in Wide Bay yielding illicit drugs to a total value of $228m.

Most recently, police seized more than 13,000 cannabis plants worth an estimated $68.6m from a drug farm in Rosedale, between Gladstone and Bundaberg, arresting six Vietnamese nationals who as of Thursday, are making their way through the local courts.

Just two weeks prior, $60m in cannabis, cash, vehicles and equipment was seized from another drug farm in Gungaloon in the Fraser Coast, with 11 Vietnamese citizens on student visas arrested.

And in October 2022, police disrupted a sophisticated drug operation in Isis Central, seizing $100m in cannabis plants grown in 51 greenhouses powered by industrial generators, arresting 14 Vietnamese and Malaysian nationals.

The Drug and Serious Crime Group confirmed on Thursday all seven grow farms raided throughout the country were allegedly run by Vietnamese organised crime groups.

Inspector Phelps said the marijuana farms were helping make money that has been “siphoned out of Australia” and those profiting from it were “living a lifestyle the rest of us would only ever dream of on the back of the exploitation not only of the people that have working for them, but of the community in general”.

He also said police suspected the farms were also helping fund the importation of other drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA into the country.

Given the plants are grown hydroponically in greenhouses, the fertile soil for which the Wide Bay region is renowned isn’t a factor; rather the climate, relative isolation, proximity to land and sea transport routes and cheaper property prices create the appeal.

“What they’re looking for is the climate, we’ve got an ideal growing climate up in that area,” Inspector Phelps said

“We’ve got the isolation, which gives them that anonymity that they seek … (and) most of these grow farms are located not too far from reasonable transportation routes to get the resources and equipment (to the farms) and to get the product back to market.

“It could also be the price of land; it may be cheaper (in Wide Bay) than it is in New South Wales to buy the same type of property.”

Insp Phelps said investigators were “absolutely” seeing a clear trend towards setting up grow farms in remote locations that ticked all these boxes.

“It appears that (the crime groups have) transitioned from doing smaller grows in residential houses, which was a trend a number of years ago, towards these large scale commercial production grow tunnels on rural properties in central Queensland,” he said.

Insp Phelps said while the national, cross-organisational investigation had alleged that all seven grow farms found around Australia were operated by Vietnamese crime syndicates, it was too soon to tell whether those groups were operating independently or under the control of a single overarching organisation.

Many of the workers from the Isis Central drug operation raided in October 2022 said they were recruited in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta by a shady intermediary called “Sun”, often on the promise of extensions to their student or working holiday visas which would allow them to continue to work in Australia.

But Insp Phelps said investigators believed that many of the workers involved in the Wide Bay operations recruited overseas.

“The defendants … have different versions as to how they were recruited,” he said.

“It’s our suspicion that a lot of them were recruited in Vietnam and come here for this purpose as opposed to being in Australia for another reason.”

Beyond the low-level labourers, mechanics and repairmen so far arrested at the Wide Bay grow farms, investigators are uncovering an alarmingly sophisticated industry with diverse roles and functions performed by specialised units.

Vietnamese nationals were arrested in all three raids of Wide Bay grow farms, with investigators identifying international crime syndicates behind the operations.

While some of the higher-level players have been identified, police are currently investigating their links to national and international bosses.

“What we have is organised crime that have compartmentalised every part of this industry,” Insp Phelps said.

“You’ll have a crew that’s involved in the purchase and establishment of the property, then you’ll have a crew that’s involved in the setup of the grow tunnels.

“Then you’ll have a production crew, which are involved in the growing of the cannabis plants until they reach harvest, then you’ll have a harvest and packaging crew that come in.

“On top of that, you’ve got a logistics crew that brings all the supplies and resources and food to all the workers onsite, and rotates the workers from site to tie.

“And then you’ll have your distribution team; there’s so many different compartments.

“We have generally identified different players … in that syndicate, but it’s been trying to go beyond that and work out who’s co-ordinating at a national or international level.”

Prosecutors described the operations as "sophisticated", with greenhouses with retractable walls powered by industrial generators.

Given the complexity and sophistication of the operations, police are required to undergo extremely resource-intensive investigations that take manpower away from other areas of criminal activity.

Following the raid on the Rosedale grow farm, many police officers were needed to remove every one of the 30,000 plants from their pots and transport them to a safe location where they could be destroyed.

Due to the manpower involved in locating, raiding and processing the sites, Insp Phelps said police were heavily dependent on the public’s co-operation in providing the initial tip-off whenever they saw suspicious activity that could lead police to another operation.

“We really rely on information from the public to give us that starting point, and then we use a number of different strategies to confirm the information and take tactical action,” he said.

“What I’m hoping to get out there, as people see the footage and the photos, is if they don’t know their neighbours or they see a property nearby that’s been taken over by Vietnamese people who have a lock on the front gate are unfriendly or don’t let you onto the property, that may be a starting point for us.

“It’s just getting those people to come forward with that information so that we can do our investigations, where appropriate.”

Investigators encouraged the public to come forward if they saw any suspicious activity including extensive greenhouse complexes.

Counter to the views expressed by some members of the public that police should spend more time clamping down on drugs such as MDMA and methamphetamine, Insp Phelps said the untaxed funds leaving the country from the massive operations are fuelling the illicit drug trade more broadly, with disastrous public health consequences.

“It’s vulnerable people in our community that are addicted to these drugs, that fund this ongoing production and that money has been siphoned out of Australia internationally,” he said.

“These are millions and millions of dollars leaving the country untaxed and going into the pockets of organised crime to fund a lifestyle the rest of us would only ever dream of.

“Those funds are then used to fund other illicit activity and bring other drugs to cause even more harm to people.”

Originally published as Vietnamese crime syndicates shifting operations to huge Wide Bay drug farms