A Vietnamese student will serve 10 months in an Australian jail after being involved in an AU$1.5 million drug operation in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster.
According to the Herald Sun, 28-year-old Dat Tien Nguyen earned AU$1,000 a day by watering marijuana plants, which were kept in a house in the surburb.
Police spotted Nguyen entering and exiting the house twice in July 2015. When authorities raided the property shortly thereafter, they discovered approximately 300 cannabis plants, worth up to AU$1.49 million in total. The young man claims he became involved in the operation after meeting a man called Son at a party, who offered him the job.
Nguyen had no criminal record prior to his arrest and told police he took the job in an attempt to help his family back home. The student originally traveled to Australia on a student visa, however after struggling to complete his studies, Nguyen dropped out and began working at a Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne.
When his father, a factory worker, was laid off in Vietnam, Nguyen took the cannabis-growing job to earn extra money for his family, according to the police.
Nguyen pleaded guilty to the charge of growing marijuana but maintains that he was not involved in the setup of the operation. The judge, who sentenced Nguyen to 10 months in jail, acknowledged his culpability in growing cannabis but felt the student's criminal activity was at the “lower end” of the spectrum.
In Nguyen's case, his involvement in the operation was voluntary, however marijuana cultivation has become a major issue for Vietnamese immigrants elsewhere in the world. Last year, a Guardian report outlined the horrific conditions in which Vietnamese children were being trafficked to the UK and enslaved in marijuana-growing outfits, only to face criminal charges when the operations were busted.
According to Anti-Slavery International statistics cited in the report, 96% of trafficking victims in the UK who were forced to grow cannabis were Vietnamese, and 81% were children.
In 2015, UK lawmakers passed the Modern Slavery Act in an effort to combat the criminalization of human trafficking victims, including young Vietnamese.
[Photo via Flickr user Mark]
