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Teens fall into drug mule hell
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June 25, 2005
 Two Sydney teenagers face 20 years in a Hong Kong jail for heroin trafficking, write Les Kennedy, Lee Glendinning and Hamish McDonald.
Rachel Ann Diaz left her family home at East Hills on the way to a sleep-over at a friend's house. At least that's what her mother thought. Then came the phone call from Hong Kong.
The 17-year-old Sydney girl had been arrested in a low-budget hotel in the Tsim Sha Tsui district. Here she was caught with 114 condoms filled with heroin, according to police. They say she and her 15-year-old accomplice were about to swallow the heroin and carry it in their digestive tracts back to Australia. For that eight-hour flight, they would have confronted two grim possibilities: that a package could burst inside them, bringing death; or that they would be caught carrying heroin with a street value of $1 million.
Before they could swallow the heroin, however, police raided the hotel room.
They were the most unlikely drug mules. Fresh-faced. Innocent-looking. Diaz was from a good family, though not affluent. Both had studied at TAFE. Diaz had been a hard-working trainee hairdresser. Her accomplice had worked briefly for McDonald's. Neither had any known connection to drugs or drug syndicates. While the 15-year-old came from Bankstown, near Diaz's home, Sydney police believe the pair did not know each other before they arrived at Sydney Airport on the Tuesday in the first week of April, bound for Hong Kong. But both were allegedly willing to consume at least 20 of the 5cm-long condoms, and be paid $200 for each carried.
Ferdinand Diaz, a rep for Coca Cola, stood by his daughter yesterday as the teenagers were remanded in custody so custody by a Kowloon City Court magistrate until a committal hearing on July 29, which will decide whether to send them for a high court trial.
Mr Diaz and his wife, Maria, a mail sorter at the Leightonfield exchange, terminated the lease on their East Hills home two weeks ago, leaving no forwarding address. According to neighbours and the landlord, the Filipino couple had struggled financially, and they saved what they could since their daughter's arrest to fly to her side in Hong Kong. They uprooted their lives, and that of their two younger sons, for her.
Rachel Diaz had left school to do a hairdressing apprenticeship, and started work at Bhajune hair salon in Fairfield. Her boss there, Cirilo Malonzo, said she had been diligent and career-focused. But one day in February she arrived late, and was reprimanded. She resigned on the spot.
The next staff at the salon heard of her was the news of her arrest. There was nothing in her manner, Mr Malonzo said, to indicate she may have been involved in drugs. "I had no idea at all. I was just very shocked. I could not believe it. I mean, she was just a very quiet person and she wanted to learn a lot of things. She was very interested in further educating herself."
In recent times, Maria Diaz had battled a blood condition. Until they were told, police believe the Diazes were oblivious to their daughter's entanglements. "In my dealings with Rachel's mother, she has been completely devastated," said South East Asian Crime Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Deborah Wallace. "They had no idea."
The 15-year-old's family is from Indonesia, but of Vietnamese extraction. He may be in his mid-30s before he is a free man. The pair face 20 years in prison if found guilty. But what was their motivation? Other drug mules have been addicts, or paying off a gambling and drug debts to criminal sharks.
NSW police admit they have struggled to connect the pair with a Chinese-based criminal gang in Sydney. Federal police have examined, but dismissed, any possible link to the nine Australians arrested in Bali.
Rachel Diaz's old boss can only despair: "I honestly feel very sad. My heart feels pity for her because she is very young."
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Police role criticised after Hong Kong drug sentences
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By Alison Caldwell for The World Today - Posted Tue Apr 4, 2006
The sentencing of three young Australians in Hong Kong has raised more questions about the role of Australian police in alerting foreign authorities to drug smuggling plots involving Australians.
The trio, who were convicted of heroin smuggling in Hong Kong, have each been sentenced to at least a decade in prison and now have 28 days in which to lodge an appeal.
Two of the traffickers were under the age of 18 when they were arrested in a Hong Kong hotel room in April last year in possession of 700 grams of heroin.
Criticism has been levelled at the New South Wales and Australian Federal Police (AFP) for alerting local authorities to the heroin plot instead of waiting to arrest the Australians once they returned home.
Rachel Ann Diaz, a former trainee hairdresser from Sydney, was only 17-years-old when she agreed to smuggle heroin from Hong Kong to Australia.
In April last year, she was arrested in a Hong Kong hotel room, along with a 15-year-old and 21-year-old Hutchinson Tran, after police found 114 packages of heroin stuffed into condoms and the fingers of rubber gloves.
Diaz and the 15-year-old were to swallow them before boarding the flight back to Sydney.
In their court case, the defence team argued they were young, naive and vulnerable to an Asian crime syndicate promising quick money and an all expenses paid trip to Hong Kong.
But the judge, Justice Peter Longley, said that was no excuse for such a serious crime, and sentenced Diaz to 10 years and eight months, Tran to 13 years, and the younger defendant to to nine years in prison.
Teresa Gambaro, parliamentary secretary for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, says it is a tragic case.
"These young people are in the prime of their life, and they will be spending it in jail," she said.
She says an international prisoner transfer agreement is still being finalised with Hong Kong.
For now though, lawyers for the drug smugglers can lodge an appeal.
"Under Hong Kong law, defendants have 28 days to appeal their sentence, so there is an appeals process that they can go through, and at this stage I'm not sure if they're going to take that appeal process," she said.
"That's entirely up to them and their legal team."
At the time of the arrest, Australian police had been involved in a joint investigation with Hong Kong police.
The AFP's drugs team, the New South Wales police South East Asian crime squad and Hong Kong's police narcotics bureau were working together in the exchange of information to investigate a drugs syndicate when the Australians were arrested.
Kay Danes is with the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. She says with the information they had, Australian police could and should have acted sooner to protect the three young Australians.
"I would have thought that, had it been possible, they could have allowed them to come back to Australia, under surveillance, and then investigated where they were actually going to make the delivery," she said, "and then arrest them, along with the other people that they were going to be making the delivery to."
She concedes that allowing the drug mules to swallow the condoms full of heroin, with the possibility that they could break, was risky.
"But 20 years in an Asian jail - it's still a gruesome outcome - they're still not guaranteed to survive a 20-year jail term," she said.
A spokesman for the Australian Federal Police said the agency did not have a direct role in the case and referred The World Today to the New South Wales police but no one there would comment.
There are another 17 Australians facing serious charges in Hong Kong.
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Teen drug mules face stiff penalty
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By Les Kennedy, Lee Glendinning - Hamish McDonald - June 25, 2005
Rachel Ann Diaz left her family home in Sydney on the way to a sleep-over at a friend's house.
At least that's what her mother thought until she received a phone call from Hong Kong.
The teenager had been arrested, along with another Australian teenager Chris Vo, in a low-budget hotel in the Tsim Sha Tsui district surrounded by 114 condoms filled with heroin for her to swallow and carry in her digestive tract back to Australia.
Before she could consume any of the condoms, police raided the room.
Diaz's father, Ferdinand, stood by his daughter in court yesterday as the teenagers were remanded in custody by a Kowloon City Court magistrate until a committal hearing on July 29 that will decide whether to send them for a high court trial.
The pair, who have yet to make a plea, are being represented by a duty lawyer from the court's legal aid office.
It seems certain Diaz must have been unaware of the potential penalty she now faces - 20 years in prison if found guilty - and a life inside an overflowing prison alongside prostitutes and hardened drug criminals.
The two are the most unlikely people to suspect as human drug mules - two young fresh-faced teenagers on a holiday adventure from Sydney to Hong Kong.
Even police were staggered at the ages of the pair - Diaz, 17, and Vo, 15, allegedly willing to consume at least 20 condoms and be paid $200 for each carried. The street value of the heroin was $1 million.
Diaz, a trainee hairdresser, and Vo, who like many teenagers worked briefly for McDonald's, are a rarity in the human drug mule smuggling game - innocent-looking cleanskins. When first caught, federal police examined the group for a possible connection to the nine Australian's arrested in Bali but have since discounted any connection.
The pair did not know each other before arriving at Sydney airport in the first week of April, but now, stand with twined fates before them of living in a Hong Kong prison until their late 30s.
Since the pair's arrest, detectives who have looked at the case have been left wondering what compelled them. The teenagers hail from good families, though not affluent, and were both studying to further their ambitions.
Diaz had left school to do a hairdressing apprenticeship at TAFE and started work at a hair salon in Fairfield.
Her boss, Cirilo Malonzo, said she was diligent and focused on her career.
One day in February she had arrived late, and was reprimanded. She resigned on the spot. The next staff knew of her was her arrest.
Mr Malonzo said there was nothing in her manner to indicate that she may have been involved in drugs or had any sort of dark past.
"I had no idea at all. I was just very shocked, I could not believe it. I mean, she was just a very quiet person and she wanted to learn a lot of things - she was very interested in further educating herself," he said.
In recent times Diaz's mother, Maria, had battled a blood condition and, according to neighbours and the landlord, the family have struggled financially, saving what they could since their daughter's arrest to fly to her side in Hong Kong.
They terminated the lease on their East Hills home two weeks ago leaving no forwarding address, uprooting their lives and those of their two younger sons, to try to support their daughter through this ordeal.
The Australian consul in Hong Kong, David Imhoff, who was in court, said he was visiting the defendants weekly and they were in good shape.
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Drug-bust Australian youths get 9-13 years
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Jonathan Cheng Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Three young Australians have been sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison for trying to smuggle more than 700 grams of heroin from Hong Kong to Sydney last year.
Chris Ha Vo, 16, and Rachel Ann Diaz, 18, both admitted to drug trafficking after Hong Kong police found heroin with a street value of more than HK$326,000 in their Tsim Sha Tsui hotel room during a raid last April.
Vo and Diaz were to serve as "drug mules," swallowing condoms stuffed with the drug before returning home.
Deputy High Court Judge Peter Longley Monday gave the two teenagers reduced sentences because of their immaturity, saying they had been lured into their roles as drug couriers by the promise of quick money.
Vo, who had just turned 15 at the time of his arrest, received a mitigated sentence of nine years for his youth and willingness to testify against his codefendants, while Diaz had her sentence lightened to 10 years and eight months in part because of a history of having been abused as a child.
"You were both well aware that you were involved in very serious conduct when you came to Hong Kong, and the very serious consequences if caught," Longley told the two.
The third defendant, Hutchinson Tran, 23, was given a harsher sentence because of his role as a facilitator in the plot, "looking over" Vo and Diaz during their stay in Hong Kong. Tran, who had also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 13 years and four months.
All three remained emotionless as Longley read out the sente
nce. None had any previous convictions.
Defense lawyers had portrayed Diaz and Vo as young, impressionable victims of an international drug ring.
According to her lawyer, Diaz was sexually assaulted at age five, and raped by her uncle at 12.
Vo's lawyer, John McNamara, said the teenager was especially vulnerable to the "tremendous offer" of a free trip, accommodation and spending money. He had reportedly worked in a McDonald's restaurant in Australia.
"He's a young, immature boy used by older and cynical criminals," McNamara said.
Diaz told police she had only known Vo for a few months in Australia, where both of them were recruited.
Diaz, a Vietnamese-Australian who had worked as a trainee hairdresser, said she changed her mind at the last minute and tried to back out, but reluctantly agreed to continue after being told she would have to pay for her travel expenses to Hong Kong.
In the end, Diaz said she would not swallow any drugs, agreeing instead to only help Vo with his role in the operation.
The two arrived in Hong Kong on April 5, 2005, with accommodation arranged for them at a North Point hotel.
The hotel, however, denied them their room because both Vo and Diaz were under 18. The syndicate then sent Tran to meet them. Tran, who Vo and Diaz had never met before, took them to Imperial Hotel on Nathan Road, and paid for all their expenses that week.
On the night Vo and Diaz were to return to Australia, Narcotics Bureau officers spotted Tran leaving the hotel to buy three boxes of condoms at a local Watson's pharmacy.
Tran returned to the room and began stuffing the drugs into the condoms, promising Vo A$200 (HK$1,110) for each five-centimeter packet that he swallowed, upon delivery in Australia.
But they were busted by the Narcotics Bureau.
After sentencing, local activist Matt Pearce stood up in the gallery and waved bright yellow placards calling Vo and Diaz victims of the international drug trade.
Pearce, who was convicted of creating a public nuisance last month after scaling a building in Central dressed as "Spiderman" to protest Beijing's handling of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square incident, loudly called the verdict a "disgrace."
He was ushered out of the courtroom by two Correctional Services officers.
Tran's mother was there to witness the sentencing, and left the court without commenting.
The case follows those of several Australians who received stiff penalties in recent months for trying to smuggle drugs into their home country from other parts of Asia.
The Bali Nine, a group of Australians traffickers, were caught by Indonesian authorities trying to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin that same month, April 2005. Two were sentenced to death in February, while the other seven were given prison life sentences. All are appealing or seeking clemency.
In another high-profile case, Australian beauty therapist Schapelle Corby was sentenced to 20 years in jail in January for trying to smuggle 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali.
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Hong Kong court to rule on fate of teenage drug couriers
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By Mary-Anne Toy Herald Correspondent in Hong Kong April 3, 2006
ALMOST a year ago, Rachel Diaz told her parents she was going to a girlfriend's for a sleepover. Secretly, on April 5, the Sydney teenager flew out of Australia bound for Hong Kong.
Nine days later police raided a cheap Kowloon hotel and arrested Diaz and another Sydney teenager, Chris Vo.
Police found about 700 grams of heroin, worth $1 million in Sydney, and 114 condoms and cut-off fingers from rubber gloves when they raided the hotel. Prosecutors said the teenagers had been offered $200 for each packet of heroin they swallowed. Vo allegedly had agreed to swallow at least 20 packages but Diaz had apparently changed her mind and was backing out of the deal when police raided.
The two would-be drug couriers, along with the 21-year-old Australian who recruited them, are due to be sentenced in Hong Kong's Court of First Instance today after all three changed their initial pleas of not guilty to guilty.
Hutchison Tran, 21, who admitted that he arranged for the two teenagers to act as drug couriers, faces life imprisonment; Diaz, now 18, and Vo, 16, could each get up to 20 years in jail.
NSW Police last year admitted they had struggled to connect the pair with a Chinese-based criminal gang in Sydney as they tried to understand how the two youngsters - Vo was 15 when arrested - got involved in such a gamble.
Kay Danes, of the Foreign Prisoner Support Service, said the three young people were just minor players.
"These young Australians are not the monsters that some people think they are. Nor are they the ringleaders in the drug industry … People make mistakes and yes, when they do the wrong thing then they deserve to be punished," Ms Danes said.
"But we are hoping the Hong Kong authorities will be merciful, particularly for Rachel, who has never been in trouble with the law before. She is genuinely remorseful."
Ferdie and Maria Diaz, hardworking churchgoing Filipino migrants, are believed to be struggling financially after using up the family's meagre savings flying to Hong Kong to support their daughter. The couple have two other children.
An officer from the Australian consulate in Hong Kong has been visiting Diaz every week. The teenager is being held at a prison for young female offenders. Lawyers for the three defendants and their families declined to comment.
In a letter to Ms Danes at the end of February, Diaz wrote: "Thank you so much again for your support. I really need it … I still miss my family and I don't know I'm going to survive in here. I don't know if I can handle it being away from my family and I really hate it in here … right now I feel helpless, sad and depressed even if I want to be happy I can't. All I can do is wait and hope for the best."
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