On 21 September 2026 the County Court of Victoria jailed Duy Duc Dao and Quoc Vinh Tran for 12 years and six months each for cultivating a large commercial quantity of cannabis at Toolamba, near Shepparton.[1][2] Each must serve eight years and four months before parole.[1][2] The Shepparton News spells the second man’s name Quoc Vinh Tran.[2] The ABC spells it Quoc Van Tran.[1] Both were 36 and pleaded guilty.[1][2]

Police searched a property on Waugh Road on 9 February 2022 and found 8,805 plants: 3,371 in one greenhouse, 2,624 in another, and 2,410 seedlings under lights in a packing shed.[2] The cannabis weighed 5,180 kilograms, including 88 kilograms already dry.[2] The ABC reports that weight as 5.1 tonnes and quotes Judge Pardeep Tiwana calling it the largest reported seizure of cannabis by weight in Victoria, more than 20 times a large commercial quantity.[1] By plant count it was eight times that threshold, and the court heard it would have been worth 22 million to 26 million Australian dollars if the plants had matured.[1][2]

The plants were in pots with individual watering, and the power and water meters had been tampered with.[1][2] Officers found timers, water tanks, fertiliser and a whiteboard reading “Pollinate Monday, Wednesday, Friday”.[1] Both men lived at the property.[2] Police burned the crop, with firefighters called in.[2]

Judge Tiwana said they were not the organisers and not mere crop sitters: they tended the plants and stayed for the money.[1][2] Dao, an Australian citizen, signed the lease in August 2021 and was paid 5,000 dollars to have the power bill in his name.[2] The judge accepted that he did not then know the intended use.[2] He was 70,000 dollars in debt.[1][2] Tran came from Vietnam in 2019, had worked as a painter, a butcher and a seasonal farmer, and is likely to be deported.[1][2] Neither man had prior convictions.[1][2]

The ABC says three other people skipped bail on the eve of their trial and remain at large.[1] The Shepparton News says Tran himself failed to appear for a trial listed in July and was arrested again two months later.[2] Dao and Tran appeared from prison by video.[1]

The Shepparton News published photographs of the greenhouse, an aerial labelled 415 Waugh Road, and the 2022 burning of the plants.[2]