Hoang Xuan Le, colloquially known as "Big Bro," from Tustin, has been handed a sentence of 210 months in federal prison for orchestrating a meth trafficking operation bound for international waters, as announced in a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner also mandated a $50,000 fine for Le's pivotal role in the drug ring that hid substantial amounts of meth in innocuous items like food storage buckets and metal boxes, delivering the illicit substances to countries including Australia and Papua New Guinea.
According to court documents, Le, aged 43, and his accomplice, Tri Buinguyen, 40, a.k.a. "Bro," from Garden Grove, coordinated with contacts in the destined nations to camouflage the meth shipments as legitimate commercial products, falsifying manifests and customs documents, all the while conversing over Signal, an application with military-grade encryption as well as using bogus names and business fronts, they took extraordinary measures to cover up the true nature of these exports.
Law enforcement intercepted two of the shipments orchestrated by Le, one of which contained around 30 kilograms (66.1 pounds) of meth destined for Australia in August 2020 and the other, even larger, some 150 kilograms (330.7 pounds) sent to Papua New Guinea in late 2021.
The prosecutions were unyielding in their perspective of the matter, stating, "On top of the sophistication and reach of this drug trafficking organization, [Le] played a critical leadership role in it," and they highlighted his heavy involvement in the shipments, his keenness for updates, his interactions with international cohorts, and his meticulous planning behind these illegal exports using both air cargo and ocean freight, affirming that this "was a wide-ranging, lucrative, and sophisticated international narcotics conspiracy, and [Le] was its leader in the United States," according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
Tri Buinguyen also faced the consequences for his role in the conspiracy, receiving a 15-year prison sentence and a matching fine of $50,000, he also admitted to coordinating additional meth shipments of 32 kilograms which were bound for New Zealand in the later part of 2022; however, similar to the other parcels, they too were intercepted by vigilant law enforcement officers. The expansive investigation into the drug ring included the efforts of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and was bolstered by assistance from a roster of agencies, among them the USPS Inspection Service, the DEA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Australian Federal Police, and the New Zealand Customs Service.
