Three Australians - including
two teenagers - were given prison sentences of up to 13 years and four months
yesterday in Hong Kong for trying to smuggle heroin stuffed in condoms to
Australia.
Lawyers for the defendants, all from Sydney, asked the judge to give their
clients light sentences because they were naive, vulnerable young people
recruited by a crime syndicate promising quick money and a vacation to Hong
Kong.
Deputy High Court Judge Kim Longley sentenced the youngest defendant, Chris
Ha Vo, a 16-year-old fast-food worker, to nine years in prison. The other
teenage defendant, hairdresser Rachel Ann Diaz, 18, was sentenced to 10 years
and eight months.
The third defendant, unemployed Hutchinson Tran, 23, got 13 years, four
months in prison.
The trio stood emotionless as the sentences were read.
Longley said Tran was an adult when he committed his crimes and played a more
active role than Vo and Diaz, supplying them with the drugs and condoms and
arranging hotel accommodations for the two.
The trio were arrested on April 12, 2005, in a hotel room with 701 grams of
heroin stuffed in condoms, prosecutors said. They planned to swallow the condoms
and act as "drug mules" smuggling the narcotics to Sydney, prosecutors said.
The heroin had a street value of HK$325,000 (US$40,000).
The trio pleaded innocent in August to charges of trafficking in a dangerous
drug. But in December, Tran and Vo changed their pleas to guilty. Diaz later
also pleaded guilty.
Announcing the sentences, Longley also said Vo cooperated with police and
that Diaz had a history of abuse that triggered behavioral problems.
Defense lawyers said their clients suffered hardships that made them
vulnerable to crime syndicates that recruited them.
"These young people, your honor, are the victims of a syndicate," Diaz's
lawyer, Peter Callaghan, said.
John McNamara, Vo's lawyer said his recruiters offered the teenager US$4,285
and spending money to swallow 30 condoms filled with heroin in Hong Kong and
return to Australia.
Lok Man-fai, a narcotics officer with the Hong Kong police, said Australian
authorities arrested two suspects in connection with the case but that they have
yet to face trial.