Case Reports

In a landmark case, the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd, trading as CommInsure, was fined $700,000 on 28 November 2019 after earlier pleading guilty to 87 counts of offering to sell insurance products in the course of unlawful, unsolicited telemarketing calls. This conduct is known as “hawking”.

On 15 November 2019, Ms Rungnapha Kanbut (57) was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for slavery offences relating to two Thai women.

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 10 July 2019, a financial advisor who stole $4.8 million from his clients was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of seven years. James Gibbs (51) was sentenced in the District Court in Adelaide, after stealing the money from 30 victims who were retired or preparing for retirement between 2009 and 2016.

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 8 February 2019, 19-year-old Jewel Victoria Griffiths was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for importing 121.76 milligrams of carfentanyl into Australia with no commercial intent. She will be eligible for release on recognisance after five months, subject to paying $5000 and being of good behaviour for six months.

On 9 October 2018, Troy Stanley Gould pleaded guilty in the District Court at Brisbane to one count of attempting to utter counterfeit currency and two counts of possessing counterfeit currency. Gould was sentenced to a total effective sentence of 18 months imprisonment and ordered to be released immediately.