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Melbourne woman who recruited Malaysian flight attendants as drug mules jailed

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The self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Richmond’ is sentenced to 18 years’ jail.

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The Malaysian flight attendants recruited to smuggle drugs to Australia had hidden them in their underwear. (Reuters pic)

PETALING JAYA:
A Melbourne woman who ran an international heroin syndicate, including the use of Malaysian airline attendants as drug mules, has been jailed for up to 18 years.

Michelle Ngoc Tran, 49, who referred to herself as the “Queen of Richmond”, was sentenced by the County Court in Melbourne. She was one of seven main players in the syndicate.

The Flinders News, quoting Australian Associated Press, said Tran used Malaysian flight attendants to import “tickets” of heroin, which they hid in their underwear. They were paid in cash, before they returned to Malaysia less than 10 hours later.

The news site said Tran paid A$155,000 for each “ticket” of heroin, which weighed about 1kg, and then sold the drugs wholesale for A$195,000 per unit. She boasted that the heroin, which was 70% to 80% pure, was “the highest purity available in Australia”.

The court was told that Tran, who was arrested last year, dealt with a supplier in Malaysia known as “Mr Hanoi”. Two of her associates were nicknamed “The Manager” and “Johnny”.

“Mr Hanoi”, the report said, would alert Tran when the heroin was about to arrive on flights from Malaysia to Australia.

Tran told the court she sold the drugs to repay gambling debts, but the judge, Michael Cahill, said profit was her primary motivation.

“Your offending was extremely serious and your culpability is very high,” he was quoted as telling her.

Tran, who pleaded guilty to importing and trafficking a commercial quantity of heroin, will serve a non-parole period of 13 years, the report said.

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