R v Tertsis

[2023] NSWDC 442

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v Tertsis [2023] NSWDC 442

Hearing dates:

22/9/23

Date of orders:

22/9/23

Decision date:

22 September 2023

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Bourke SC DCJ

Decision:

Convicted and sentenced to a Commonwealth term of imprisonment of 3 years 3 months with a NPP of 18 months (14/9/22-13/3/24).

A 25 percent discount has been taken into account.

Catchwords:

Crime – Sentence – Commonwealth offence – Import tobacco with intention of defrauding the Commonwealth of revenue

Legislation Cited:

Customs Act (Cth) 1901

Crimes Act 1914

Cases Cited:

R v Zhang [2017] SASCFC 5

R v Saleh [2015] NSWCCA 299

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

Commonwealth DPP – Crown
Dimitrios Tertsis - Offender

Representation:

Mr P Scard for Crown
Mr M Ainsworth for Offender

File Number(s):

22/275204

sentence

1. The offender Mr Dimitrios Tertsis is for sentence on a single offence under the Customs Act (Cth) 1901 being an offence under s 233BABAD(1) of importing tobacco with intention of defrauding the revenue.

2. The maximum penalty for that offence is ten years imprisonment. The maximum penalty is of course an important guidepost in the sentencing exercise to which I have had regard.

3. I intend on account of the offender’s plea of guilty to allow a 25% discount by reason of the utilitarian value of that plea. There is of course no specified percentage in Commonwealth matters but nonetheless that is the discount that I consider appropriate in this case.

FACTS

4. Turning to factual matters, the Agreed Facts note that the offender arrived in Australia from Greece in November 2019 and thereafter was involved with others in the preparation for, and importation of, two shipping containers which contained tobacco products. He did so with the intention of avoiding the payment of Customs duty. Each container was intercepted by Australian Border Force and were found to contain a total of 16 million cigarettes. The Customs duty relating to them was $17,904,800.

5. The offender, a Greek citizen, was recruited to participate in the offences by a Georgios Machalias who had arrived in Australia on the same day in November 2019 as the offender. There is no evidence, however, as to how they came to know each other.

6. Mr Machalias is also a Greek citizen. He left Australia in late-2019 and has not returned to Australia. It is not known whether Mr Machalias gave directions to the offender about the imports or whether both Machalias and the offender acted on the directions of another man, Paul Validis, who was directly involved in the purchase of the tobacco that was in the containers. As I have said the offence involved two containers.

7. The first container was shipped from Singapore to Sydney in late September 2021 via Malaysia. Its documentation recorded that it contained 14,000 pail buckets. However, following X-ray, the container was found to contain 600 cardboard boxes concealed at the rear of the container behind a large number of plastic buckets. Inside the boxes there was found 6 million Canyon brand cigarettes comprising 5.2…