{"id":529593,"date":"2026-03-09T21:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529593\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T21:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:18:15","slug":"cleaning-job-offer-led-to-womans-arrest-at-calderwood-cannabis-farm-court-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529593\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning job offer led to woman’s arrest at Calderwood cannabis farm, court hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A court has heard a 32-year-old Vietnamese woman arrested at a cannabis farm in Calderwood, south of Wollongong, travelled to the property on the promise of a lucrative cleaning job.<\/p>\n

Thi Hue Tran was one of 10 people, mostly Vietnamese nationals, arrested when police raided the Calderwood Road property in May 2024.<\/p>\n

The raid was part of a police operation targeting a transnational organised crime syndicate, which lead to a total of 19 arrests and the seizure of more than $80 million worth of cannabis.<\/p>\n

The court heard almost 100 kilograms of cannabis leaf was on the property, which is a few kilometres from a new housing development near Albion Park.<\/p>\n

In a previous sentencing<\/a> related to the same case, the operation was likened to “modern-day slavery” by Magistrate Lucas Swan.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Thi Hue Tran was sentenced in Wollongong District Court this morning. (ABC News: Nick McLaren)<\/p>\n

Tran pleaded guilty to one charge of being part of a criminal group and one charge of supplying an illegal drug.<\/p>\n

She was sentenced to a community correction order and a fixed-term imprisonment of one year and 11 days by Judge Imad Abdul-Karim in Wollongong District Court today.<\/p>\n

She will serve no further time after spending almost 13 months under house arrest.<\/p>\n

‘$350 per day cleaning job’<\/p>\n

The court heard the 32-year-old had moved to Australia with her husband eight months before the raid, looking to work and send money back to her children and parents.<\/p>\n

She had several jobs, including picking strawberries, working as a nail technician and packing food in a factory.<\/p>\n

Judge Abdul-Karim said in his reasoning that Tran was looking for a second job in Cabramatta when she was approached by a person who promised her a cleaning job paying $350 a day in Calderwood.<\/p>\n

He noted that Tran told a sentencing report and psychological assessment she was unaware the operation was dealing in cannabis, and she arrived on the site just two days before the raid.<\/p>\n

The agreed facts stated she was found by police crouched behind a table used to cook food and that her DNA was not found on any of the cannabis product.<\/p>\n

Justice Abdul-Karim described her as “reckless to the fact that leaf bud was an illegal drug” in his sentencing remarks.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A large shed full of cannabis drying trays was found during the police operation. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n

Tran wiped away tears in the courtroom this morning as a translator helped deliver the sentence.<\/p>\n

Judge Abdul-Karim said he accepted Tran’s genuine remorse, referring to an apology shared in the psychological report.<\/p>\n

“I apologise for everything I’ve done because of my ignorance,” Tran said in the report.<\/p>\n

“I deeply regret what I’ve done.<\/p>\n

“I’ve caused a lot of worry to my parents and children [and] my husband is very sad and is trying to support me.”<\/p>\n

According to the agreed facts, police raided the property at 2:20pm on May 29, 2024, finding six commercial-sized polyethylene greenhouses and a large industrial shed.<\/p>\n

Inside the shed, they discovered several people working with harvested cannabis leaf and a partitioned area with mattresses, clothing and personal items.<\/p>\n

A cooler with ice to keep energy drinks chilled and numerous harvested cannabis plots led police to believe the harvest had only recently been completed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several others arrested in the raid will face sentencing later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A court has heard a 32-year-old Vietnamese woman arrested at a cannabis farm in Calderwood, south of Wollongong,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[263139,10697,263143,263137,263138,43,263142,44,263140,41,39,42,40,263144,263141],"class_list":["post-529593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-calderwood","tag-cannabis","tag-cleaning-job","tag-drug-operation","tag-drug-raid","tag-headlines","tag-imad-abdul-karim","tag-news","tag-thi-hue-tran","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vietnamese-woman","tag-wollongong-district-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}