Fengliang Su: Chinese national faces deportation after minder role in big Rivervale drug bust

A Chinese national who agreed to mind a large amount of drugs to pay back a gambling debt owed to his construction sector boss faces deportation after being jailed in WA. Fengliang Su was doing cladding work in Sydney and would send his earnings back to family overseas until he developed a gambling and drug habit that left him about $5000 in debt. When his boss told him to fly to Perth in January 2024 to keep an eye on almost 1kg of methylamphetamine and 342g of heroin at a Rivervale home until someone picked it up, he agreed. “You were also enticed to go to Perth with the promise of work in the cladding industry in relation to new development of apartments,” District Court of WA Judge Carmel Barbagallo noted. But when the collector of the drugs arrived and sought to obtain only a portion of them, Su had an angry phone conversation with his boss, did not hand any over and went to sleep. Police, who had been watching the operation, burst into the house and woke him up, finding the drugs nearby. Judge Barbagallo said she struggled to find anything to demonstrate Su had genuine remorse, beyond his guilty pleas to possessing heroin and meth with intent to sell or supply. “They are truly evil drugs, and you are part of the problem. Don’t think that you aren’t,” she said. “You only need to look at how your involvement in the distribution of drugs of addiction has affected your life, and how it will come to affect every aspect of your life for some time to come.” She sentenced the 36-year-old to eight years in jail, noting he had an outstanding arrest warrant in NSW and would likely be sent back to China after finishing his term. Su, who is in Australia on a bridging visa, will be eligible for parole after serving six years. His former boss is due to face trial in Perth next month.