Chow admits ammo charge

 IAN Chow, the Lae Biscuit Company managing director, is facing a two-year jail sentence and a fine of A$13,200 after pleading guilty in an Australian court of trying to illegally export components used in the manufacture of ammunition into Papua New Guinea.

Chow is to be sentenced on Thursday in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court after admitting the charge of exporting prohibited goods, the Melbourne Age reported.

In a pre-sentencing hearing last Thursday, the court was told Chow had last year instigated the exportation of gunpowder, cartridge cases, primer and propellant from Australia in boxes that were marked as containing household items and ingredients for making biscuits.

The items were detected when PNG autho­rities inspected a ship that arrived in Lae and looked in the containers, which were wrapped in black plastic.

The court was told Chow was present at the time and did not have a permit for the items. 

He was arrested by Australian Federal Police last year.

Michelle Sewell, for the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions, told the court Chow paid an associate, Peter Cunningham, A$16,200 to source the gunpowder and other items and arrange for them to be exported through another man, Frank Goodwin.

She said Cunningham falsified documents to have the items exported out of Australia and that he and Chow had assured Goodwin there were no concerns over the ship’s contents.

The court was told Cunningham pleaded guilty to exporting prohibited goods in an ACT court last December and was put on a good behaviour bond with conviction and fined A$500. No action was taken against Goodwin.

Sewell told magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg that Chow deserved a more severe punishment given his role in organising the plan and instructing Cunningham.

Chow’s lawyer told the court his client had the ammunition components sent to PNG for use by members of the Lae Pistol Club and that his reasons for doing so were for “legitimate, lawful and pro-social purposes”.

The court was told Chow chose to take a “short cut” by shipping the items to PNG without permission from authorities, as the shooting club and police officers in Lae were short of ammunition when Chow’s house burnt down in February last year.

Chow had kept ammunition for the club at his house and that it had been destroyed in the fire.

Sewell told the court the AFP accepted there were no criminal motives behind Chow’s attempts to rush the components in undetected. The items would have been lawful with a permit, she said. – The Age