A Taiwanese Chinese man was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for smuggling A $39 million worth of meth into Australia from household items.
Gu Jiacheng was sentenced to 10 years` imprisonment by the High Court of Brisbane. (photo of Radio 7)
Australian Border Defense Agency (ABF) seized nearly 20 kilograms of meth in Brisbane in November and arrested 28-year-old Gu Jiacheng that month, according to the Australian news agency. The methamphetamine is stored in six packs of household appliances sent to Australia from Hong Kong, including foot baths, microwave ovens and water purifiers.
The Brisbane High Court heard that the drug was high in purity, with a market capitalisation of A $39 million. Gu Jiacheng earlier pleaded guilty to smuggling commercial quantities of border control drugs and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday. Since he has been in custody for some time, he is expected to apply for parole in less than four years.
It is reported that Gu Jiacheng came to Australia on a work holiday visa in April 2015 and worked in a factory to remove chicken bones. During that time, he was coerced by his cousins to participate in drug smuggling.
In the phone the Australian federal police heard at the time, Ku family-shing mentioned the drug smuggling to people in Taiwan, and found his fingerprints in the packaging after the authorities had monitored the delivery of the drug. Judge Franagan (Peter Flanagan) said in his sentence that Mr. Gu would not have been able to arrange the operation if he had not been in Australia, saying that Mr. Gu had "taken the link" in the drug smuggling incident.
