Erin Pearson
July 5, 2019
The Age
It was text messaging between “Ocean”, “Uncle Fish Fillet” and “Brother Two” that brought undone an illegal tobacco smuggling enterprise and methamphetamine ring.
For eight months, Tunqiang Yu – known as “Uncle Fish Fillet” – and two Chinese nationals created a drug empire on the streets of Melbourne, illegally importing more than $1 million worth of cigarettes through shipping containers between China and Port Phillip Bay, hidden inside plastic flooring.
At the time of the seizure in 2017, it was Australia’s biggest ice bust. now, a Chinese national has been sentences over the illegal tobacco smuggling enterprize and methamphetamine ring.
More than six kilograms of pure methamphetamine, also known as ice, was also uncovered as part of sweeping Federal Police raids across Melbourne’s east in 2017.
While Yu’s in-laws – “Ocean” and “Brother Two” – fled Australian shores before they, too, could be arrested, on Friday Yu, 55, was sentenced in the County Court to more than 11 years’ jail.
“You’ve had a long wait to learn your fate,” Judge John Carmody said.
“A term of imprisonment is the only appropriate sentence for your offending.”
The court heard that between May 2016 and February 2017, and while authorities listened in, Yu and two others discussed the importation and storage of the drugs and smokes via telephone and encrypted communication.
At the time Yu was living with his wife and young daughter in Koonung Road, Blackburn North, and in effect working as a warehouse distributor at wholesale level, at times hiring a rental truck from Budget Rentals and moving the large boxes of cigarettes between storage facilities in the Box Hill area.
On February 4, 2017, police raided a shipping container as it arrived at the Port of Melbourne, where they uncovered 750,000 foreign cigarettes hidden inside kitchen cabinets and plastic flooring.
A second shipping container was searched on February 11, where another 718,000 illegally imported cigarettes were found.
More tobacco was seized at a storage unit on Lexton Road in Box Hill North and a home on Bayley Grove in Doncaster, with a total value of more than $1 million.
From January 27 to February 2, 2017, the syndicate was found with 6.244 kilograms of pure methamphetamine hidden in various locations. Police said it had been smuggled into the country in wax that had then been concealed within the floorboards.
The haul represented more than eight times the minimum commercial trafficking level.
Almost $20,000 in cash was also seized as the proceeds of crime.
“Another two men … including your brother-in-law … are responsible for the importation of those drugs [ice],” Judge Carmody said.
The court heard that police began monitoring the trio’s communications using listening devices and telephone intercepts on January 15, 2017, including while Yu spent time in NSW.
There, he was heard discussing the movement of the drugs, with his brother-in-law declaring that Yu would “fix everything”.
Federal surveillance officers then spied large boxes, later found to contain the imported floorboards, inside the garage of Yu’s home.
The court heard Yu migrated to Australia in 2007 and worked in the kitchen of a NSW restaurant before moving to Melbourne with his wife and first daughter to be closer to medical treatment facilities.
His role in the syndicate was dsecribed in court as being “that of a garbage man”, transporting and removing the illegal substances.
In his sentencing, Judge Carmody said his job was to “denounce the criminal conduct”.
“Sentencing must be sufficiently severe to offset the lure of easy profit,” he said.
“It is most likely that you will be deported to China
[upon release]
.”
“Your prospects of rehabilitation [are] guarded.”
Yu pleaded guilty to illegally importing tobacco and trafficking a large commercial quantity of methamphetamine.
He must serve at least eight years and six months behind bars before being eligible for parole.
Subscribe to our free mailing list and always be the first to receive the latest news and updates.