DPP v Ghale [2026] VCC 283

16 February 2026. Those facts are agreed and form the basis of this sentence. 4. In short, on 30 January 2024 police came to your home in Campbellfield and executed a search warrant. You arrived soon after they did. They searched your house and garage and other areas on the property. 5. In total they found 637,869 cigarette sticks equivalent to about 423 kilograms of tobacco, and about 579 kilograms of loose tobacco. The total amount of tobacco, including all the additives and moisture, et cetera, as the Act requires, is just over 1,002 kilograms. 6. Police also found a handwritten list of products and diaries, indicative of some operation of a business involving tobacco sales. The prosecutor however, does not say that you were involved in that business. At least it could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. 7. Rather the prosecutors case is that you were reckless that the items were tobacco. That is, you knew there was a substantial risk that the items were tobacco and that, absent from any explanation from you, it is reasonable to suspect that no customs duty or excise or tax had been paid on those (Charge 1). 8. Police also found a flare in your car. It is a marine type flare. It is a legitimate product and should have been stored in its original packaging, but it was not. Otherwise, it is the kind of item that marine boat owners are able to transport around in their vehicles if they have a legitimate purpose. It is not said that you did however, and that gives rise to Charge 2. 9. Police found 988 vapes on your property which contain nicotine, which is a Schedule 4 poison (Charge 3). 10. They also found a flick knife, some OC spray, and two knuckledusters, each of which is a prohibited weapon (Summary Charge 5). 11. Police arrested you that day and released you, pending further enquiries. You were charged, ultimately, late that year on 19 November 2024, and you have been on bail since. 12. When they asked you questions, you told police that you didn't know the tobacco was there, that you didn't know who put it there or how it ended up in various places including the children's bedrooms. 13. I find that these answers you gave were plainly lies and that you were covering up for what you really knew. Nevertheless, in court you have admitted guilt and pleaded guilty to the charges. Your instructions to your counsel, which he duly submitted, were that all of the items but for the things you admitted, were from a friend of a friend who offered to pay you a small amount of money for storage. You admitted some of the weapons were yours. 14. Your guilty plea saves the community and those involved in the case the inconvenience and cost of a trial. It demonstrates that you have taken responsibility for possessing these items and a willingness to speed the court processes along. 15. You were 40 at the time and you are now 42. You were born in Nepal, I am told, in poverty. You have had no meaningful contact with your mother for basically all of your life. Your father died when you were 15. You spent most of your early life moving between relatives, rarely attending school, instead working in various jobs. 16. You came to Australia in 2005 with your then wife and had a child together after arriving here, but you separated in 2013. You still have contact with your child. You subsequently re-partnered and had another child and your partner and two children were living with you at the time of this offending. 17. I regard your possession of these items in their bedrooms as being an aspect of the case that shows you had not thought this through, or you were willing to place your children's welfare at risk by storing this material with them. Your partner was originally charged with this offending, although the charges were discontinued and you have since separated. 18. Since arriving in Australia, you have worked as a cleaner and a labourer and then as a stone mason. You now run your own business for which I have received character references from those who work with you in that industry. They say you are 'hardworking, reliable and responsible and respectful.' They say you are a 'quiet person' and I expect that indicates your history, and coming from a non-English speaking background. The references are Exhibit 1. 19. You have been a citizen of Australia for over 10 years and you have no criminal history. 20. The maximum penalty for Charge 1, possessing tobacco in a quantity of more than 500 kilograms that is suspected reasonably as to not have had duty or excise paid on them, is five years imprisonment. 21. The maximum penalty for Charge 2, is also five years imprisonment. 22. The maximum penalty for Charge 3, the summary offence about the vapes, is 10 penalty units. The maximum for Charge 5, possessing prohibited weapons, is two years imprisonment. 23. In sentencing you on Charge 1, the commonwealth offence, I must impose a sentence of a severity that is appropriate in all the circumstances of the offence, taking into account the mandatory considerations in16A(2) of the Crimes Act (Cth). 24. I must not imprison you and not require that imprisonment be served immediately unless having considered all of the available material, and all other types of sentence, I am satisfied that no other sentence is appropriate in all the circumstances. I comment that that is a demanding test and one that ultimately has fallen in your favour. 25. Charge 1 is an inherently troubling offence. In your case I find your offending to be a moderately serious example of that offence. A very significant amount of tobacco was found, one tonne of tobacco, at your home. Roughly speaking, that would have attracted about $1.8m in taxes. 26. I am not suggesting that that is the money you or anyone else was about to make. In your case you admit through your counsel that you had the possession of that tobacco for money. You said it was a small amount, and I have trouble accepting that. But I have not been provided any evidence about how much you did earn in fact. The tobacco is clearly involved in the illicit market for irregular tobacco products. But I make no finding about whether you were involved in that market at all. 27. Your offending was said to have occurred on a single day, not alleging that you had it for an extended period, or that you were going to have it for long. In all the circumstances, I find the objective gravity of your offending to be low to moderate in those restricted factual circumstances. 28. I find you bear moderate moral culpability for the offending of possession of the tobacco. You were certainly reckless in my view, as to whether the items were tobacco and that is what alleged. But it was not alleged that you had any further knowledge or involvement in it. 29. I find it difficult to accept that you agreed to store one tonne of illicit valuable tobacco for a couple of hundred dollars. But I am unable to make a positive finding about how much you did earn. Suffice to say, you did it for profit. 30. I suspect, without making a finding, that because you are said to have a successful business in stone masonry, you run a home with two cars and support a family, that you were not in need of committing such an offence in order to make a couple of hundred dollars. 31. In any case I do not find that your offending is part of a course of conduct, despite it being a rolled-up charge. The one charge represents all the tobacco located on your property, and that is what I will sentence you on. 32. As to your personal and related matters, I have given some weight to your history and the fact that you have made good coming to Australia, having come from an impoverished background. However, I do not find that background to have any particular nexus with what you have done here. 33. You have built a successful business career which I do find means that you have some nous about profit and loss and work providing an income. But you have no prior convictions and I accept that that reflects positively on you and your prospects for the future. 34. Beyond your guilty plea there is no real evidence, apart from your friends' references, as to your remorse and contrition, or appreciation for the wider consequences. 35. It must be said this kind of tobacco regularly comes with rubbish in it. Which means in selling this tobacco, the people who buy it smoke and take into their lungs, sometimes dangerous chemicals, rubbish, bodily excretions and other material which is highly offensive and dangerous. Selling illicit tobacco is a public health concern of a high degree. Any conduct that supports this trade in my view, supports the direct harm that this tobacco causes to those who smoke it. 36. Because of these reasons I have given significant weight to the need to deter others from this kind of offending which facilitates that illicit trade. Of course, such a trade also means that the government does not have income from that trade, an income which supports overcoming the consequences of people's addiction to tobacco. 37. Your sentence will publicly denounce you for what you did and appropriately punish you. I have placed some, albeit limited weight on the need to specifically deter you given your lack of prior convictions. Whilst I am clearly of the view that this trade in illicit tobacco must be the subject of community protection, I am not satisfied that I should sentence you on the basis of the need to protect community from you. 38. In light of the lack of prior convictions, your strong and ongoing worklife, and your positive involvement with your family, I find that you have fair to reasonable prospects for rehabilitation. 39. The prosecutor submitted you should do time in gaol, starting today. Other cases like this one have resulted in that. Your counsel submitted that there's a good basis for your immediate release. I have had regard to comparative cases, that of YZ v R [2025] NSWCCA 165, R v Al Majedi [2024] QCA 27, CDPP v Pham [2025] VCC 1795, CDPP v Nguyen [2023] VCC 421. 40. In particular, I have had regard to the mental element required in this case, such as it is. That is, the prosecutor need only prove that there's a reasonable suspicion that this tobacco had not been the subject of tax payments. There is no other mental element required to be proven against you. Whilst I accept you knew there was tobacco, and that it was probably illicit, it is not said that you had any greater criminal purpose in mind. 41. I have also taken into account the low maximum penalty, and the sentencing practices as revealed by the cases I have just referred to. 42. I sentence you as follows; 43. On Charge 1; for possessing more than 500 kilograms of illicit tobacco about which there is a reasonable suspicion that no duty or excise had been paid,

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