Bail granted for alleged heroin dealing grandmother

By Mark Russell
Updated November 24 2014 - 2:08pm, first published 1:57pm

A Supreme Court judge has granted bail with "a degree of hesitation" to a 60-year-old Melbourne grandmother accused of being a major heroin dealer.
Justice Lex Lasry said he hoped strict bail conditions would stop Suong Pham from fleeing the country despite the maximum penalty for the charges she faces being life imprisonment.
The judge asked Mrs Pham to enter the witness stand on Monday to give a solemn promise she would comply with her bail conditions, which she did.
He said the prosecution case against Mrs Pham did not appear to be as strong as the case against her daughters who had allegedly travelled to Sydney on several occasions to buy heroin.
Justice Lasry warned Mrs Pham, who was not expected to stand trial until 2016, that if she breached any of her bail conditions she would be immediately returned to prison.
Mrs Pham and her two daughters, Linh Trinh, 26, and Thuy Trinh, 25, were arrested on October 9 after police raids on homes in Mentone, Footscray, Richmond, Braybrook, Thornbury, Sunbury, Fitzroy, and Flemington following an eight-month investigation.
She has been charged with one count of trafficking commercial quantities of heroin, one count of possessing heroin, one count of recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime, and 11 counts of dealing with property suspected to be proceeds of crime.
Justice Lasry said Mrs Pham's bail conditions included providing a $180,000 surety, surrendering her Vietnamese passport, not attending any international or interstate points of departure, living in her house at Braybrook, not contacting any witnesses apart from her daughters, and reporting daily to Sunshine police station.
The judge said there was no certainty Mrs Pham would be given custody of her four-year-old granddaughter, who is being cared for by the Department of Human Services after her mother Linh Trinh's arrest.
The grandmother, who does not speak English, was one of 17 people, including her two daughters, charged with being members of a major drug trafficking syndicate.
Police claim Mrs Pham and her daughters ran the syndicate from their Braybrook home.
The sisters allegedly regularly flew business class to Sydney to buy the heroin, which Thuy Tran would hide in a backpack and bring to Melbourne on an overnight bus.
The women allegedly bought blocks of heroin for $95,000 cash, which were then cut up, packaged and prepared for sale at the syndicate's safe house in Footscray.
Police found more than $250,000 in cash in Mrs Pham's home, with some of the money hidden in a child's toy and in the toilet cistern.
Mrs Pham and the 16 other accused are due to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on January 30 for a committal mention.

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