![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767107171_235_749c3d1cd0378341498a35ddbc40801d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAfter an eight-day journey below deck on a cramped wooden fishing boat from Indonesia, three Chinese nationals arrived illegally into Darwin Harbour in the darkness before dawn.<\/p>\n
Unlike many others trying to enter Australia via its vast northern borders, the trio hadn’t been detected by Australian maritime authorities, and managed to make it ashore.<\/p>\n
It was just after 5am on April 24, 2024, when they were met by a 22-year-old Darwin man named Ziyang Sun outside a military museum in the city’s popular East Point Reserve.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The trio arrived, undetected, on the shores of Darwin’s East Point Reserve. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)<\/p>\n
It was a brazen example of people smuggling into Australia, and one which has now landed Sun in home detention for 18-months, and seen the three Chinese nationals deported.<\/p>\n
The operation was laid bare in the NT Supreme Court \u2014 Sun was sentenced on December 16 after pleading guilty to one charge of people smuggling.<\/p>\n
Sun was given details through encrypted messages about where to meet the trio, and was expecting financial compensation for being what he described as their “Uber driver”.<\/p>\n
The court heard Sun had acted as a chaperone, driving the trio to a local shopping centre for groceries, before helping them book accommodation at the Oaks Hotel in Darwin CBD.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767107173_99_82a2703a48440b371eade19c31c24254.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Sun helped them book accommodation at the Oaks Hotel in Darwin, as well as acting as a chaperone.\u00a0 (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n
A video shot in Sun’s car shows the trio’s elation at reaching Australian shores.<\/p>\n
“We’ve arrived. We’ve arrived. Ah, we’ve arrived in Australia. Very happy,” they said.<\/p>\n
On April 27, Sun drove the three people to Darwin Airport, where they were able to board a Jetstar flight to Sydney and disappear into the community for months.<\/p>\n
For his efforts in facilitating the transfer, Sun had received around $US5,100 ($7,600).<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767107174_838_db3966652457019c564b4ae7ce932196.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The Chinese nationals boarded a Jetstar flight to Sydney, where they disappeared into the community for months. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n
In sentencing Sun, Supreme Court Justice Jenny Blokland said during July and August, 2024, the trio was “detected in the Australian community and removed from Australia”.<\/p>\n
On August 1 that year, Sun was charged with people smuggling at his home in Darwin.<\/p>\n
Sun ‘expressed remorse’ over role<\/p>\n
The court heard that Sun, a promising chef at China Bar restaurant in Darwin, had not fully comprehended the seriousness of his actions in helping the three people at the time.<\/p>\n
Justice Blokland said Sun, now 24, had no criminal history and “expressed remorse for his actions \u2026 [and] demonstrated an understanding of the lawful process of immigration”.<\/p>\n
“Bringing unauthorised people into Australia presents obvious social problems,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It creates conditions which can exploit vulnerable and hopeful people, who will actually never be able to settle in Australia.”![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767107176_713_dab6d3cd67a38cb28d0e50df9c67e72f.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Ziyang Sun was sentenced to home detention for 18 months in the Northern Territory Supreme Court.\u00a0 (ABC News Michael Parfitt)<\/p>\n
She took into account Sun’s early guilty plea and the fact he had spent two days in prison before sentencing him to an intensive community corrections order and home detention.<\/p>\n
Huge spike in illegal arrival prosecutions<\/p>\n
In a statement after Sun’s sentencing, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commander Melinda Phelan said border agencies were working to “disrupt and deter people smuggling activities”.<\/p>\n
“Those who engage in this illegal activity, including making attempts to collect unlawful non-citizens from people smuggling ventures to Australia, will face the consequences of the law,” she said.<\/p>\n
During 2025, there have been multiple publicised instances of Chinese nationals arriving to the northern coast of Australia and managing to make it to shore, in the NT and WA.<\/a><\/p>\n