source : the age
It began as a routine job for a low-level illegal tobacco dealer.
Two years ago, a 37-year-old woman followed orders from her boss to sell $3000 worth of cigarettes to a customer in Sydney’s north-west.
Just minutes after arriving at the Epping house she was assaulted by a group of men, blindfolded and taken to a house in nearby Eastwood. There, she was beaten and injected with a potent “date-rape” drug. The gang’s aim? To steal the code to two tobacco storage sheds in the south-western suburb of Belfield.
The traumatised victim negotiated her escape and the men fled to Victoria, where they were caught and extradited to Sydney to face justice. One man – Yanyu Mu – has been jailed for up to eight years.
The woman’s terrifying kidnapping and torture is a window into the alarming violence of Australia’s illegal tobacco trade – one of the world’s most lucrative markets. While the war has centred on Melbourne, the harrowing case shows Sydney is not immune.
A fake tobacco deal and suburban kidnapping
The victim, who this masthead has chosen not to name, migrated from China to Australia in 2018. Her sole income was the sale of illegal tobacco, which police suspected was imported through the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
As the keeper of codes to the Belfield sheds, rented at the direction of her overseer, she would occasionally open them for people to transport boxes suspected of hiding black market tobacco products.
While she went about this underground work, a group of men from Melbourne devised a vicious plan involving a fake tobacco deal, court documents state.
On April 16, 2024, Victorian man Mu travelled to Sydney to rent a house with a garage in Eastwood, paying $1800 for a two-night stay. The 31-year-old told the property agent it was needed for business purposes.
Four days later Mu sat inside a parked white Lexus on a quiet street in Epping. Nearby, two men and the victim’s “customer” waited in a Toyota Camry, having organised to buy $3000 worth of cigarettes.
The woman’s ordeal began when she met her “customer” on the street, and the two men jumped out of the Camry, dragged the victim into the car and drove away.
A desperate friend of the victim who witnessed the kidnapping called the police, and a hunt began.
‘Get this done ASAP’
When the Camry arrived at the rented Eastwood home, the men pulled the frightened and blindfolded woman up a set of stone stairs and onto a bed.
Panicked WeChat messages were exchanged between the men at the house and Mu, who was not yet there. They were concerned police had been called and that the victim’s friend may run to the warehouse.
Mu asked the men to have people ready at the warehouse, texting: “Get this done ASAP. Need to finish really fast, otherwise things may go wrong.”
“ [If] people find the plate, find the car … everything will just blow up,” Mu wrote.
After exchanging a series of frantic messages with Mu, the men bound the victim’s hands and covered her eyes and mouth.
One kidnapper told the woman they would release her if she paid them $300,000. Otherwise they would hit her. She tried to say “no” through her covered mouth and would not reveal the storage unit codes.
Frustrated, the kidnappers’ conversation turned to injecting the woman with butanediol, commonly known as “bute”. The Australian Federal Police have increasingly seen the drug – which dangerously slows the nervous system – linked to sexual assaults and overdoses, as well as criminal gangs selling it for “nefarious” uses.
There is no suggestion the victim was sexually assaulted.
Chilling texts and a terrifying injection
With Mu still on his way to the Eastwood home, he exchanged WeChat messages with two co-offenders about the “bute”. One man told him he was “going to give an injection”, soon expressing this was “difficult”.
“Hold on … giving the injection,” the man responded. Mu asked if she was “getting high after the injection” and said to “hit her if it doesn’t work”.
One man placed a pillow over the victim’s face while another held her legs while a needle was injected into her elbow and hand. The agreed statement of facts tendered to court state the woman felt “a rush of heat all over her body before she started to lose consciousness”.
While knocked out, she was repeatedly struck in the head. Once she awoke, she told one of the men she’d “rather pay $200,000” than tell them about the warehouse.
Eventually, the victim cracked and gave the code to Mu and another man. The pair rushed to the storage facility at 3:30am and entered the code five times, but access was denied as the woman’s entry was restricted to 5am-10pm.
Meanwhile, the victim promised another co-accused to pay him money if she was released. He untied her and drove her to a friend’s house. The near-naked and emotional woman said she’d been kidnapped and begged her friend for money. The friend gathered $6000 she’d saved up for rent and gave it to the man, who drove away.
The victim was left with bruises and cuts across her body, and later went to hospital.
By the next day, Mu and one alleged co-offender had fled back to Melbourne. However, they were in the sights of detectives, who had already seized his phones at a “friend’s” house in Sydney. NSW police shared intel with their Victorian counterparts, who soon arrested them and extradited them to Sydney.
Ringleader jailed as others yet to learn fate
Mu pleaded guilty to kidnapping in company with intent to gain an advantage and occasion actual bodily harm, as well as using an intoxicating substance to commit an indictable offence.
He was sentenced in the District Court to eight years’ jail with a non-parole period of four years and eight months. With his sentence backdated for time spent in custody, he will be eligible for parole in February 2029.
The Crown conceded that, although Mu was at the property during the victim’s detention, it could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was inside the relevant room while she was detained. Neither could it be proved that he assisted in the Bute injection, but he “gave encouragement via text message to the use of an intoxicating substance to the victim,” the agreed facts state.
Mu’s alleged co-offenders remain before the courts and cannot be named for legal reasons.
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