Ex parte application of Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police

Filed in court this morning on behalf of the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police was a notice of motion seeking a number of orders pursuant to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth) (“the Act”) as well as orders under the Court Suppression and Non-publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW) and by reference in some instances to the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW). The matter has a history and read on the application and in support of the notice of motion were two affidavits. One, an affidavit of Michael O’Rourke whose affidavit, as I follow it, was used in previous proceedings under the same Act as well as an affidavit of Marisa Vitagliano sworn on 18 April 2024 which exhibited a number of relevant documents.

The history of the matter, and I will be brief in providing this, is set out in those affidavits but essentially some time back there was an investigation into the defendant, Tony Nguyen, and his mother in circumstances where suspicions attached to a number of financial transactions and search warrants were issued at certain properties. Against what was said to be a daily cleaning income of $60 cash on the part of his mother and a declared income of approximately $130,000, the authorities uncovered movements of money and deposits and withdrawals in sums approaching – and I am being approximate here – or indeed exceeding $5 million. In the course of a search of the premises there was $2.5 million, again in approximate terms, seized. Following upon that Mr Nguyen was subject to orders under the Act and was charged and ultimately on 23 June 2023 --

Pursuant to the provisions of the Act there was an examination order and part of the exhibits to Ms Vitagliano’s affidavit is the transcript or what purports to be a transcript of that examination. In the course of that, and at an early stage, counsel in appearing for Mr Nguyen, who I should say is currently the first defendant in the present application and proceedings, produced an original passport in the name of Tony Nguyen. Mr Nguyen was asked a very clear and specific question, namely, “Are you known by any other name?”, to which he replied “No”, and then went on to say, “All my friends know me as Tony Nguyen”. He was asked to speak up and he repeated that answer, “No. All my – everyone knows me as Tony Nguyen”.

On the evidence before the Court this morning, and noting I am only hearing one side of the case because it is being heard ex parte for I think obvious reasons, that evidence was false. Mr Nguyen was also asked whether he owned any property in Australia outside of New South Wales. There was some toing and froing between the lawyers and ultimately, based on the way that question was there defined, Mr Nguyen answered “No”. Again, based on the one side of the material that I have seen, that answer was also false because there is indeed some real estate owned by the first defendant in Victoria. The answer in relation to his name was false because in February 2019 he had officially changed his name to Do, that is, Viet Truong Do.

The provision of false answers and misleading evidence in an examination of that kind is an offence pursuant to s 197A of the Act. It is an offence that carries five years imprisonment and by the definition of serious offence, in particular, paragraph (ga) of that definition in s 338, it is caught by the relevant provision. The result is that the jurisdiction of this Court to make orders under, inter alia, s 18 of the Act is enlivened.

There are some formal requirements in the Act including the provision of affidavit evidence and that has been satisfied. As I see the material and read the section, all of the formal prerequisites are satisfied and accordingly it is appropriate to, if not mandatory that, I make orders pursuant to s 18 restraining the property in Victoria to which I have made brief reference.

In addition to that, the Commissioner seeks orders of an ancillary nature and orders placing the custody and control of the aforementioned property in the hands of the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy. That is an order under s 38 and custody and control orders under the same section. The ancillary orders are set out in what is order 14 of the short minutes of order provided and there are some carve outs, if I can put it that way, relating to the activities of a third-party mortgagee being the Westpac Banking Corporation trading as the Bank of Melbourne.

Whilst I said it was obvious, I should also say that the Court was closed and non-publication orders have been and will be made and the matter was dealt with ex parte for the simple reason that a failure to undertake the hearing in that way ran the very significant risk of thwarting the very purpose of the proceedings. That is, there may have been an attempt to move, for want of a better word, the property, thus thwarting the attempts by the Commissioner to obtain the restraining orders or for those restraining orders to have any effect. It was for that reason that I made the order that the Court be closed and that the matter be heard in Mr Nguyen or Mr Do’s absence, as well as the absence of any other person who might have an interest in the matter or an inclination to advise them what is happening.

The relevant property is set out in schedules one and two and the orders are set out in short minutes of order which have been provided to the Court and which reflect the orders sought in the notice of motion. Unless there is anything else I need to say I propose to make those orders --

For the reasons above, I made the following orders on 19 April 2024, as outlined in a short minutes of order document dated 19 April 2024 handed up to me: “Upon the Plaintiff providing, on behalf of the Commonwealth, the usual undertaking as to costs and damages in relation to the property, the subject of these orders, the court orders that: