A Sydney woman has been jailed for 12 years over her "devious" role in an attempt to import 150 kilograms of drugs into Queensland.
Thi Phuong Mai Nguyen, 51, of Cabramatta in Sydney's southwest, pleaded not guilty earlier this week in the Brisbane Supreme Court to attempting to possess commercial quantities of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug.
Nguyen also pleaded not guilty to dealing with money intended to become an instrument of crime.
The jury took two and a half hours to find Nguyen guilty on both counts on Thursday after a trial that lasted more than three days.
Nguyen was surveilled by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Brisbane on October 29 and 30 in 2019 while attempting to exchange $240,000 in cash for an inert substance she was told was MDMA, the active ingredient of ecstasy.
Nguyen claimed she had been assaulted, had a pistol aimed at her and was told her family would die if she did not fly to Brisbane and hire a vehicle so she could act as courier for the deal.
In sentencing, Justice David Boddice said Nguyen had "deep involvement" in the deal and a "complete absence of remorse".
"(Nguyen) sat in (the) witness box and gave evidence that was deliberately untrue to conceal her involvement in a sophisticated operation," Justice Boddice said.
He said Nguyen's claims about being under duress after failing to repay a family member's gambling debt was a "bald-faced lie" exposed by covert recordings and text messages showing she had "confidence" in her actions.
The 150kg was originally part of a 750kg consignment a Dutch crime family intended to import into Australia.
The AFP and its counterpart in the Netherlands intercepted the MDMA and replaced it with an inert substance after an undercover operative convinced the family to hire them to smuggle the drugs to Brisbane and arrange purchase by an Australian syndicate.
The deal fell apart after Nguyen went back on a pledge to buy 350kg for $1.1 million and tried to modify how the exchange would be made.
"The whole engagement shows she is a manipulative and devious person trying to get the drugs without handing the money over," Justice Boddice said.
Crown prosecutor Clare O'Connor said the MDMA, if genuine, could have been sold for $9 million wholesale or for many times more on the street.
"This was an enormous amount of drugs being planned for import into Australia," she said.
Ms O'Connor said Nguyen had provided police with passcodes for three of her phones but not for the encrypted phone she used for the deal.
Nguyen's barrister Joshua Fenton said his client had no prior criminal history.
He said she had fled Vietnam at age eight with 40 others in a boat built by her father and only she and her mother survived when they were attacked at sea.
Mr Fenton said Nguyen had admitted to many aspects of her offending which had significantly shortened the trial.
Justice David Boddice imposed a non-parole period of eight and a half years due to Nguyen's "cynical" attempt to possess a huge amount of a drug particularly targeted at young people.
Nguyen turned to look at her supporters in the public gallery when the verdict was read out and passed them her jewellery after the sentence was handed down.
