By Candace Sutton for Daily Mail Australia
Published: 09:43 EST, 12 December 2014 | Updated: 11:41 EST, 12 December 2014
Bali Nine drug kingpin Andrew Chan, who is facing death by firing squad in Indonesia, masterminded another international heroin smuggling attempt out of Hong Kong - but the operation failed, resulting in three young Australians being jailed.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal for the first time that Chan enlisted Sydney teenager Rachel Diaz, 17, and Chris Vo, 15, both from western Sydney, as drug couriers to smuggle $1 million worth of heroin in condoms, which they were to swallow in Hong Kong and bring back to Australia.
The Hong Kong deal was to run at the same time as the Bali Nine operation - when Chan, Myuran Sumurakan and seven Australian mules were arrested, some with the drugs strapped to their bodies.
It can also be revealed that after his own arrest, Chan wrote a letter to Diaz in Hong Kong, ordering her to keep her mouth shut.
Chan and syndicate partner Sumurakan are on death row and were told this week by new Indonesian President Joko Widodo that he would not grant them pardons, despite their attempts to rehabilitate themselves behind bars. They could face death by firing squad in coming months.
Chan, who Indonesian police called 'The Godfather' when they arrested him, was a key organiser of the Australian end of the smuggling and distribution network, which was detailed in the Hong Kong court during Diaz's trial and described as a 'predatory crime syndicate'.
In just two weeks in April 2005, the syndicate was responsible for the arrest, and later the incarceration, of 17 young Australians for heroin trafficking in three countries.
Diaz, Vo and their minder Hutchinson Tran, 22, were arrested in a low budget Hong Kong hotel room on April 12, 2005.
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