On Friday, 31 August 2018, Henry Sabbah was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months’ jail by her Honour Judge Girdham SC, after he was found with a satchel containing $31,550 in counterfeit $50 banknotes in April 2016.
On 27 July 2018, Yunhui Xue, a 26-year-old Chinese national who had overstayed his student visa, was sentenced to five years and six months’ imprisonment for smuggling 11.32kg of ephedrine contained in two consignments into Australia.
Following a lengthy 10-week trial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, seven men involved in trying to smuggle 182kgs (145.6kgs pure) of methamphetamine onto a remote beach in Western Australia, were collectively jailed for over 164 years.
On 18 June 2018, 35-year-old Purdy McGee was given an effective sentence of 2 years' imprisonment in the Brisbane District Court, after pleading guilty to receiving $89,238.88 in Centrelink benefits to which she was not entitled.
On 6 June 2018, 48-year-old Artur Wojcik, a Polish national, was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment, in addition to his existing non-parole period of 6 years and 8 months for importing 2.29kg of pure cocaine, after he was sentenced for escaping from Mannus Correctional Facility in Tumbarumba in early April
On 1 June 2018, the former Chief Executive Officer of abalone farm Australian Bight Abalone Ltd (ABA) Andrew Ferguson, was sentenced to 3 years, 6 months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 1 year for providing false or misleading information to the company’s board and potential investors.
On 22 May 2018, the former general manager for a Perth-based livestock exporter was sentenced in the District Court of Western Australia to 18 months’ jail, suspended immediately and released on a $20,000 recognisance order to be of good behaviour for 18 months, for falsifying official documents that saw some 22,000 sheep slaughtered in Pakistan.
On 7 May 2018, general practitioner Humphry Gomes was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Supreme Court in Hobart, after pleading guilty to defrauding Medicare of $175,266.50.
Gomes, 54, made 2349 claims for services he did not provide, over four periods between May 2011 and July 2013. He submitted some claims while he was overseas.
On 18 April 2018, 23-year-old Canadian national Melina Roberge was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, to serve a minimum four years and nine months, after pleading guilty to her part in smuggling nearly 72 kilograms of cocaine into Australia on board a luxury cruise liner in August 2016, with an estimated value of $21.5 million.
On 29 March 2018, 67-year-old Michael Issakidis was sentenced to 10 years’ jail in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, for his role in a $135 million tax fraud and money laundering case, the largest ever successfully prosecuted in Australia.
Issakidis and his co-accused Anthony Dickson masterminded a corporate tax scam that netted them more than $63 million.
On 1 March 2018, Mr Raban Alou was sentenced by the Supreme Court of NSW in Parramatta to 44 years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years, for abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of a terrorist act. Mr Alou sourced and supplied the handgun which was used to shoot dead NSW Police accountant Mr Curtis Cheng as he left Parramatta Police Headquarters in 2015.
On 13 March 2018, 39-year-old Luke Taylor was fined $10,500 in the Perth District Court after his aggressive behaviour on a Qantas flight from Perth to Brisbane in July last year forced the plane, carrying 212 passengers, to turnaround. The Court further made a Reparation Order payable to Qantas in the sum of $15,207, being the cost to return the flight to Perth and the delay.
On 9 February 2018, 74-year-old Malcolm Sanders was sentenced in the Townsville District Court to five years imprisonment after pleading guilty to 29 charges—20 counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception, four counts of attempting to obtaining financial advantage by deception and five counts of using false documents to obtain a gain.
On 14 November 2017, 61-year-old Voli Della Bosca was sentenced in the Cairns District Court to two years’ imprisonment after he was found guilty by a jury of dishonestly causing a risk of a loss to the Commonwealth.
Perth man, 49-year-old, Manther Samardali was sentenced on 24 November 2017 in the District Court of Western Australia to three years and two months’ imprisonment for smuggling tobacco into Australia and obstructing a Commonwealth official.
On 16 November 2017, 37-year-old US citizen and Australian resident, Travis Harms was sentenced in the District Court of Western Australia to 2 years and 10 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to importing prohibited goods, steroids into Australia.
On 2 November 2017, Emma Louise Pearce was convicted and fined $180 for failing to vote at the federal election held on 2 July 2016. This is the maximum penalty that can be imposed for this offence.
On 8 September 2017, Judge Morzone QC of the District Court at Cairns dismissed Mark Whittaker’s appeal, confirming that he had breached an earlier sentence imposed in relation to his failure to lodge income tax returns.
On 21 July 2017, 28-year-old Nicholas Hunter (a pseudonym) was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria in Melbourne after he pleaded guilty to a number of Commonwealth and State child pornography offences.
On 19 October 2017, 28-year-old Iranian Mohammad Reza Fayazi was sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales to eight years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years, for assisting people smugglers in Indonesia.
On 15 September 2017, Kristy Lee Wessing, 36, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Supreme Court in Hobart, after pleading guilty to receiving $160,766 in Centrelink benefits to which she was not entitled. The maximum penalty on each count is five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of $33,000.
A 34-year-old Victorian man was convicted and sentenced in the County Court at Melbourne for having transmitted child pornography material and using a carriage service to menace, harass and cause offence via Facebook in mid-2016.
Former co-director and shareholder of Adelaide Lending Centre 57 year old Michael Samra of Plympton Park, Adelaide was sentenced in the District Court of South Australia to 8 years and 9 months’ imprisonment for deceiving investors and obtaining funds totalling $1.902 million.
On 8 September 2017, 42-year-old Western Australian man Dr Aaron Voon was sentenced in the Perth District Court to a total effective sentence of 18 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months. Dr Voon had earlier pleaded guilty to eight separate charges, which included filming boys' genitals at urinals and producing and possessing child pornography material in four countries, including Ca
Queensland women 38-year-old, Samantha Kissier was sentenced to six months imprisonment on 31 July 2017 for dishonestly obtaining $35,015.53 in single parenting payments over a period of three years and eight months. Ms Kisser has been ordered to repay Centrelink the amount of $31,318.53.
