Bao Tu Luu: Drug kingpin known as ‘Big Brother’ behind South America to Australia cocaine pipeline cornered

An alleged drug trafficking kingpin, accused of running a vast cocaine pipeline stretching from the jungles of South America to Australia, has finally been cornered after almost seven years on the run.

The fugitive, Bao Tu Luu, also allegedly known by his underworld alias of “Big Brother” has been detained in the United States and is now facing extradition to Australia on a charge of conspiracy to traffic almost 200kg of cocaine.

An arrest warrant was issued in 2019 for Mr Luu after a covert waterfront sting involving undercover police posing as corrupt dock workers, smashed a network smuggling drugs through the Port of Melbourne – the busiest container port in the country.

The undercover operation was run by the Trident Joint Waterfront Task Force, which was set up to investigate serious and organised crime on and around Victoria’s waterfront.

When the bust went down, Mr Luu was not in Australia and slipped the police dragnet. Five other men were charged, later convicted and jailed for a combined 60 years for their part in the crime.

Mr Luu has been living in his native Vietnam ever since, a country that does not allow the extradition of its nationals. But earlier this year, Mr Luu made an unexpected visit to the US to attend his son’s funeral.

A dual US and Vietnamese citizen, Mr Luu had flown from Vietnam to Japan using his Vietnamese passport, then on to Hawaii and into Los Angeles on his US passport, according to court records.

He was picked up by law enforcement on other unrelated matters, and while he was in custody, the FBI tipped off the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

The AFP have now moved to extradite Mr Luu and have filed documents in the US District Court in California alleging he is the mastermind behind a narco trafficking operation which has links to corrupt officials and workers in Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Colombia, and Peru.

The District Court unsealed documents in the extradition case, including an AFP affidavit, which gives a snapshot of a smuggling operation that reads like a movie script.

It details how Mr Luu flew around the world for allegedly clandestine meetings about drug deals in steam rooms in Vietnam and Indonesia, organised on encrypted phones and communication platforms.

He is alleged to have used online monikers such as #ShutTheFuckUp and #SlaughterNine to communicate with the two men who he thought were corrupt dock workers from Melbourne but were really the undercover AFP operatives codenamed Unicorn and Wisdom.

Police say in the court documents they have more than 1000 images, text messages, and recordings, including incriminating messages that include images of blocks of cocaine, details of the shipping container to be used to ship the cocaine, and details of the specific location of bags containing cocaine within the shipping container.

There are also exchanges of text messages captured by police, which purportedly show discussions about how Mr Luu owns the largest Mixed Martial Arts gym in the southern hemisphere.

The AFP affidavit said that by agreeing to fly across the world and meet up in the steam room in a spa in Ho Chi Min City, the undercover operatives Unicorn and Wisdom had satisfied Mr Luu’s scrutiny about their intentions as drug traffickers.

But as a result, the operatives were able to positively identify Mr Luu after meeting him face to face and seeing his distinctive body tattoos. They described Mr Luu as an American man of Vietnamese descent with a thin build, short black hair and brown eyes who had a faded tattoo on his right thigh, a semi-circular neck tattoo with the text Anh in the middle over his left shoulder and another tattoo with 4v4 on his left arm.

It has been alleged in the documents that the evidence against Mr Luu includes his own admissions in recorded conversations and text messages that he was the head of the syndicate.

It is not suggested that the allegations against Mr Luu are true - only that they have been made in documents filed in a US court in support of his extradition to Australia to face a charge of conspiracy to import cocaine.

In the captured conversations, Mr Luu also allegedly asked Unicorn and Wisdom about the amounts of drugs they could manage to smuggle and asked them to identify piggy-back companies amenable to shipments departing from Colombia, Peru, or Ecuador, where he had contacts.

Also allegedly captured in their discussions was Mr Luu telling the operatives he preferred a partnership with them as opposed to paying for a service in advance, which was known as a “door fee.”

The affidavit said Mr Luu allegedly “proposed what he claimed was a risk-free plan.”

“Luu would cover the entire cost of the shipment and the UC’s Unicorn and Wisdom would pay Luu back with their share of the cocaine, or Luu would pay Unicorn and Wisdom for their share within one month of receiving the cocaine,” the document said.

The affidavit said that when the trio discussed their respective plans for ongoing business, Mr Luu said his expectations were that they would treat each other like family - to the point that he could trust Unicorn and Wisdom enough to lend them up to one million dollars.

There were also Cipher messages discussing how the smuggling operation would be achieved, which included sending a duplicate, identical, fake security seal for the shipping container to cover up the fact it had already been opened and to throw Australian Border Force officers off the trail.

Police alleged there are text messages discussing how and where they would find two black duffel bags with yellow ribbons tied around the handles, which would hold the drugs.

An extradition request for Mr Luu to be returned to Australia has been signed by the Federal Attorney General, Michelle Rowland and filed in the Federal Court.

A spokesperson for the Federal Attorney General’s Department said, “As a matter of longstanding policy, the Australian Government does not disclose whether it has made or received an extradition request to or from another country or comment on the details of its consideration of particular cases.”

Mr Luu remains in custody, and his lawyers have been contacted for comment.

His extradition hearing is set down for early next year.