Case Reports

On 17 October 2019, former Queensland financial adviser Ben Jayaweera (61), was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of six years, for defrauding clients of $5.9 million by diverting their investments into a failed abalone farm without their knowledge.

On 4 October 2019, Ryan McCarthy (27) was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to 5 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 months for placing false job advertisements online and stealing the identities of job applicants in order to lodge false income tax returns. He was also ordered to pay reparations of more than $167,000.

In May 2019, an Adelaide paedophile described as ‘a child’s worst nightmare’ by Judge Chapman in the District Court of South Australia, was jailed for 40 years and three months, with a non-parole period of 28 years.

On 2 August 2019, Japanese shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd (K-Line) was convicted of criminal cartel conduct and fined $34.5 million: the largest ever criminal fine imposed under the Competition and Consumer Act.

Drug duo jailed for importing nearly 500kg of MDMA

On 9 October 2016, Australian Border Force (ABF) officers examined a container at Port Botany in Sydney and found 493.27kg of a brown crystalline substance hidden inside 20 pallets of aluminium rolls.

The substance was carefully concealed within the two middle aluminium rolls on each pallet.

On 12 April 2019, Mr Sergio Amaranti was sentenced to two years and nine months’ imprisonment, to be released after 18 months upon entering into a Recognisance Release Order, in the District Court of Western Australia after earlier pleading guilty to seven counts of dishonest conduct.

On 15 March 2019, former financial planner Gabriel Nakhl was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of six years, after he took approximately $5.1 million of his clients’ investment funds and used it for his own purposes. Reparation orders totalling $4.6 million were made in favour of the victims.

A 54 year old Brisbane man, Peter Gooding, appeared before the District Court of Queensland on 13 December 2018 and was convicted of 76 charges of aiding his company, Storetrans Pty Ltd, trading as Goodings Container Transport, to deal with goods at non-quarantine approved premises without the permission of a quarantine officer or a director of quarantine.

On 22 November 2018, Ahmad Zia Alizadah, 35, was sentenced in the District Court of Western Australia to 9 years’ jail with a non-parole period of 4.5 years, for smuggling asylum seekers on boats from Indonesia.

On 5 October 2018, Ms Akal Kaur Khalsa was sentenced in the Downing Centre District Court to 12 months’ imprisonment to be served by way of an Intensive Corrections Order, for eight offences involving: