CIGARETTE SMUGGLER AND MONEY LAUNDERER HUI SENG TAN JAILED

A Malaysian woman who flew to Melbourne to get a more hands-on approach to a money-laundering and tobacco smuggling system for a global criminal syndicate has been jailed for her sophisticated crimes.

Rebekah Cavanagh,
Herald Sun

August 27, 2020

A Malaysian woman who flew to Melbourne to take control of money laundering and tobacco smuggling operations for a large-scale global criminal syndicate has been jailed.

Hui Seng Tan, 25, will spend at least two years in an Australian jail cell before she is likely to be booted out of the country for her sophisticated crimes.

The County Court heard Tan was already involved in the Melbourne operations, barking orders from overseas.

But she flew to Victoria on July 5 last year to have a more hands on approach.

Within days of landing, she had her lackeys doing secret runs to addresses in Narre Warren and Sunbury to collect large sums of cash of up to $200,000 for each assignment.

A total of $1.6 million was laundered within a month.

She also organised the smuggling of two consignments of illicit tobacco cigarettes between May and July last year.

AFP telephone intercepts overheard Tan telling one of her underlings that the cigarette imports were “only about the dodging of tax, so Customs should not be interested”.

But she said they would set up a person to take responsibility for the cigarettes if they were caught.

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One container intercepted by Australian Border Force officers on July 18 contained 182,592 Esse lights cigarettes — a customs duty tax evasion of some $108,000.

The cartons of cigarettes were secreted around stationery sets, with the syndicate fraudulently using the ABN of a Melbourne pen store on the delivery details in a bid to avoid detection.

On arrival, the tobacco hauls were taken to a Deer Park storage unit.

Judge Anne Hassan said Tan’s importation offending was “a crime against the public purse” which had taken away funding for roads, infrastructure and other projects.

“Its victim is the community at large,” Judge Hassan said.

Sentencing her to a total of three years and two months, she said Tan’s moral culpability was high.

“You travelled to Australia for the sole purpose of committing further criminal activity … to take on a more hands-on role,” she said, adding this demonstrates her high status in the hierarchy of the syndicate.

“Effectively you were running, at least in part, its Australian-based operations,” she said.

Tan pleaded guilty to laundering money to a value of more than $1 million as well as importing tobacco products with the intention of defrauding the revenue.

Judge Hassan struggled to understand how a reasonably educated young woman with no criminal record became involved in a criminal enterprise.

“The only explanation can be financial gain or to put it more bluntly, greed,” Judge Hassan said.

The court heard the laundered money was passed on to third parties who then transferred an equal balance overseas to other syndicate members, who then used it to fund further illegal operations.

In sentencing co-offender Jordan Xing Hua Lee, 23, Judge Hassan said he was considered lower in the hierarchy with his role more as a runner and receiver.

But she said criminal syndicates like this relied on people like him to operate.

Lee was given a 10-month jail term, but was released immediately on a recognisance order where he must be of good behaviour for 18 months.