Saturday, November 27

They found him guilty in the end ...

... so I guess I can tell you all about it.
And since I've only words for this story, I'll illustrate the tale with pictures of our pending tomato harvest. Yes, tomato harvest, the one I worried we wouldn't have for lack of bees. Turns out that just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there!*And so - Hu Yang (aka Mr Frank HuYang) got himself involved with the importation of 250kg (201 when it's pure of course) of cocaine from China. Well, as we learned, originally from South America. So we'll say, via China. The North as it happened, from where Frank migrated to Australia 'lo some 20 years ago. The shipping container left China in a packing container and arrived in Sydney on 1 March 2008, all neatly packed into 251 Chinese tea packets of about 1kg each. Some packets were red, some were green, I cannot remember if this was significant. Meanwhile or earlier, whatever - it had come to the attention of AUSTRAC that rather a lot of cash was being remitted back to China in rather large lumps of $200,ooo a go. All up almost $18 million. So they notified the police who, in their turn, began to watch Frank. They also intercepted his telephone calls. A few months of intercepted calls later (we listened to almost ALL of them and them had them read to us in English, during the trial. This is one of the reasons it took so long), the police and customs became aware of the impending arrival of the shipping container (the one packed with drugs, keep up). They also became aware of plans for a cash drop off, Frank handing over a large laundry bag to another gentleman down at the Chinatown end of Castlereagh St one day. When the police pulled this other chap over and took a peek, they found $1.57 million in cash. That young man ended up spending seven months in jail as he could not satisfactorily explain where he got the money from! The legitimate story for the shipping container was that it was full of "industrial art items" aka cheap n nasty machine-made crap. Customs and the police arranged a "controlled delivery" of the container with the drugs. That is, they unpacked it carefully, took the snorty stuff, replaced it with an "inert substance" and packed it all away again. And so, the 2 girls Frank had arranged to do the picking up for him (though he claimed not, that he was a dupe) unpacked the container (with the help of some removal men) picked up the boxes (10 of them) of drugs and took them to their flat, or the flat of one of them, the princessy one I recall.
But, and here's the kicker, the police were WATCHING ALL THE TIME! Yes, and taking many, many photographs as well. One of those girls is now serving 18 years in jail, the other, 15 years. Silly girls. And so it all came to a messy end. Frank was picked up a day or two after his (new, much younger) wife had their son and, we believe, has been in remand ever since.Turns out there was an earlier trial that didn't end up with a result (hung jury we speculated). And so it was the second trial I sat on, for 70 hearing days, in an uncomfortable chair, spending time with a man I actively disliked and another who was several sandwiches short of an adequate picnic, only to be kicked off on the last day via a rather dodgy ballot!
Sentencing next year I think. Frank should pack several toothbrushes.




*actually I've seen a few, drunk as LORDS, rolling around on their backs, waggling their little legs in the air. Fermented Jacaranda juice will do that to a bee. Makes for dangerous barefoot romping though.

11 comments:

Zoomie said...

Congrats on your bountiful harvest and on slapping another drug lord into the pokey! You did your bit and then some.

cookiecrumb said...

Well. Thanks for the story. Interesting, yes, but 70 days? I might start cutting myself just to stay awake.
(I do not cut myself.)

Your tomatoes are beautiful. Good job, Mouse and Bees!

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Zoomie - I'm trying to look at it that way.
Cookie, It was a trian (HA) but I hope nobody reads all my notes, I made some inappropriate comments amongst that lot :)

Roo said...

Wow, and hurrah for the toms.

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Roo - I do believe I sayd Hurrah when I spotted them!

e said...

LOVE the illustrative tomatoes. Very abstract, very metaphorical, very 2-blog-posts-in-1. Awesome. Frank is a bad man, bees are good.

Ms Brown Mouse said...

E, Frank was foolish n greedy n selfish. Bees are the BEST!

Pink Granite said...

Goodness!
I had the idea that you were working on some sort of white collar-industrial espionage-money laundering thing. I couldn't imagine anything else which would take as long and be as boring.
Now all has been made clear!
Well done!
;o)

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Lee, there was a lot of money but not much of it being washed :)

Anonymous said...

Cocky Franky will know how many toothbrushes he'll need on April 29.

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Why yes, Anon, that he will.