Model inmate's drug import plan unravelled
After nearly 15 years in prison, drug boss Alex Chan was so close to freedom, he would have been able to taste it.
The 64-year-old heroin trafficker was due for parole in August and, by all accounts, the model prisoner was considered a certainty to get it.
He had already been moved to the minimum security Walpole Work Camp, where he was serving out his final months in relative comfort.
But Chan's hopes of being released any time soon were shattered early on Tuesday when police came knocking on his cell door waving a fresh warrant for his arrest.
What police allege the Chinese-born Australian had been up while behind bars reads like something from a movie script.
Using his former connections, police claim Chan was the brains behind the Australian-leg of a $1 million plot to import 3kg of methylamphetamine from Taiwan to Perth.
Once known in drug circles as "Big Brother", Chan spent his days outside the Walpole camp working in the local community, where he had access to mobile phones that police claim he used to communicate with his alleged conspirators.
But Australian Federal Police Det. Supt. Terry Nunn said a covert surveillance operation was already well under way when their plan was finally put into action this month.
Police say the drugs had been concealed in a wooden lead-lined barrel and sent via a courier from Taiwan to Perth. But the parcel was intercepted by police before it left Taiwan and the drugs were removed before it was allowed to continue on its journey.
Police allege the three Perth-based members of the syndicate were in the process of unwrapping the parcel when officers burst through the door of a home in Butler on Tuesday and took them into custody.
For Chan, his arrest on the new charges meant an immediate transfer back to a maximum-security prison where he will now remain as the court process gets under way again.
The father of four was originally arrested in Sydney in 1997 and charged with drug offences.
He was accused during his trial of being a Perth-based member of the "Sing-Ma" triad.
He was sentenced to 20 years jail in August 2000, with a minimum non-parole period of 15 years.
Six years of that sentence were served in NSW prisons until he secured an interstate prison transfer in 2006 on compassionate grounds, allowing him to return to Perth where his wife and children lived.
Chan also had business interests here, including a half-share in a Perth market garden that shipped fresh vegetables to Asia.
Other interests included a partnership in a construction com- pany in Malaysia, and Sydney-based company that was exporting wine to China
Organised crime squad Supt Dene LeeKong said the disruption of the latest importation had prevented about 30,000 hits of "ice" from reaching the streets of Perth.
"The syndicate was attempting to import methylamphetamine in its purest form and sell it to local drug dealers, who then prey on the vulnerable in our community," he said.
"Identifying, targeting and dismantling such syndicates can only be achieved when law enforcement agencies work together and in WA those relationships have never been stronger."
