Drug family in jail
A VIETNAMESE family who moved to Townsville to set up one of the largest cannabis growing houses ever found in North Queensland have all been jailed.
Brothers Hieu Dinh Vu, 26, and Dinh Tung Vu, 27, and Dinh Tung Vu’s wife Thi Phuong Lien Tran, 30, flew into Townsville from Melbourne on Friday to be sentenced for drug trafficking. The trio were arrested in May 2015 after police raided their Alice River home, bought under another woman’s name.
At full capacity, the house would have been capable of yielding up to $ 2 million worth of cannabis a year. While no cannabis grown in the house was sold, the trio had trafficked cannabis sourced from elsewhere.
Crown prosecutor Andrew Walklate said there were almost fully mature cannabis plants “basically ready to go” in the house and the trio needed to be sentenced, considering the amount of cannabis potentially produced if they hadn’t been caught.
“It would effectively flood the Townsville market,” he said. “We’re dealing with a grow house that was about to produce 125 pounds ( 57kg) of cannabis.”
Because of the sophistication of the operation Judge Gregory Lynham suspected there was “someone further up the chain who’s never going to be identified”.
Barrister Remy van de Wiel, for Dinh Tung Vu and Tran, said Tran would be deported and her three young children, all Australian citizens, were to live in Vietnam with her parents. Hieu Dinh Vu’s barrister Harlis Kirimof said his client was involved with the house only because “he couldn’t refuse” his brother.
“It wasn’t until far later he became aware of the purpose of the Ring Road property or even the meaning of the word ‘ weed’,” Mr Kirimof said.
“While he may have assisted in the setting up of the grow house, he never initiated anything.”
Judge Lynham found Dinh Tung Vu was the principal offender, and Tran and Hieu Dinh Vu were aware of the trafficking operation’s scale and helped with it.
Dinh Tung Vu was jailed for five years, Tran for three- and- half- years and Hieu Dinh Vu for three years. Dinh Tung Vu’s sentence will be suspended after 20 months; Tran’s and Hieu Dinh Vu’s after 12 months.