VIC: Police charge eight people over heroin trafficking

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-1999
VIC: Police charge eight people over heroin trafficking

MELBOURNE, Aug 20 AAP - Eight people involved in one of Victoria's biggest heroin rings
have been charged over offences relating to the trafficking of heroin.

Police smashed the ring yesterday in raids on 11 homes across Melbourne and one in Geelong
resulting in arrests of up to 12 Vietnamese nationals.

Five of the eight charged this morning were from the Sunshine area, one from Whittington,
one from Avondale Heights and one from Ardeer, a police spokesman said.

Yesterday, Detective Superintendent David Newton, from the Crime Department, alleged the
group sold about a kilogram of heroin each week over a period of up to three years, with a
street value in excess of $1 million per kilo.

He said police had identified two separate networks working in conjunction with each other
and the four main targets of the operation had been taken into custody.

A number of the other people had lesser management roles, he said.

"The network was so extensive that we've had to concentrate on the persons in the high-
volume trafficking amounts and people who have been trafficking lesser amounts are known to us
and they may be gathered up in the next couple of months," he said.

The group had extensive networks for trafficking of heroin in Footscray, Geelong and St
Kilda, he said.

"It (the raid) has probably resulted in the most significant dismantling of a high-level
heroin distribution network in Victoria," Det Supt Newton told reporters.

The heroin was allegedly imported to Sydney and transported to Melbourne.

The eight were charged with trafficking and conspiring to traffic a drug of dependence
(heroin).

AAP st/ah

KEYWORD: RAIDS CHARGES

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