Operation Birchwood: Drug smugglers cooked by courts after 20kg meth haul found in Canadian oven

The meth had already been cooked. The price was also hot — up to $13 million if sold in points on Perth’s streets. So how apt that the 21kg of deadly narcotics should find its way from Vietnam, via Toronto, hidden in a high-class oven. The WA-based masterchef of the operation was father-of-seven Thang Hung Nguyen, who had ironically run a restaurant for some time in earlier years — in between a long-established life of crime. His sous-chef was old friend Phuoc Sang Le, whose debts and serious illness meant Nguyen’s offer of quick, easy cash for his help was too tempting to refuse. And so, in late 2018, the pair began their plan to import the oven. Their starting point was setting up what looked like a legitimate kitchen appliance business on Le’s run-down Maddington property. The proceeds of just one oven importation could have been hundreds of thousands of dollars each. With plans of many more ovens to come. So what followed included flights to Vietnam, encrypted phones, code words, casino meetings, FedEx numbers — even a tracking device detector. But despite the cunning and the planning, Nguyen had no idea that his every word and deed was being traced by the Australian Federal Police. Operation Birchwood had been on foot for months, having already listened when Nguyen boasted he was on his way to Vietnam to meet the “big boss”. And in the first days of 2019, they also heard him worriedly say to his sister: “F....ing taking too long. It goes to customs. They f....ing inspect it, you know. And if it goes good, no worries. But if it doesn’t go good we’ll be dead.” How right he was. Because when the oven finally did arrive in Sydney, it was intercepted by authorities, with 21 one-kilogram packages of high-quality methamphetamine found wrapped and hidden in the walls. They were replaced with fake drugs, and the oven sent on its way. Days after that, raids scooped up Le, Nguyen and another accomplice — Lang Nguyen — who admitted his role, and turned star witness. During a three-month trial earlier this year, he opened up the oven plan. Le and Nguyen denied everything. But the case was overwhelming, and their denials rejected. This week, Nguyen — the “prime mover” — was jailed for 17 years, with 10 years to serve. Le received 15 years, with nine years to serve. “The person in Vietnam was calling the shots overall. But you were the one willing to bring a destructive drug into this community, purely for profit,” Judge Troy Sweeney said. The West Australian can reveal that the initial bust led to a joint operation between the AFP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which has resulted in another 250kg of drugs being seized from the same syndicate. Some 37kg of methamphetamine was found hidden in ovens intercepted in Adelaide in April 2019. In October 2020, the RCMP seized 140kg of methamphetamine hidden in commercial kitchen equipment bound for Australia and in October 2021, the Canadian Border Services Agency found about 76kg of methamphetamine and 25kg of phenethylamine, an analogue of amphetamine, in a commercial dough mixer destined for NSW. “This investigation identified a drug-trafficking network involving Australia, Canada and Vietnam. These criminal groups have a negative financial and social impact on every community in which they operate,” said AFP Assistant Commissioner David McLean. “The collaboration between the AFP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to establish the source of the 21kg of methamphetamine led to authorities in both countries seizing additional consignments of drugs from Canada that were destined for Australian streets.”