In July 2018, our client was charged with conspiracy to import and possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, after a 12-month long major controlled operation involving extensive electronic and physical surveillance. The operation commenced after the Australian Border Forced located and seized our client’s shipping container, which contained 1.28 tonnes of cocaine concealed inside steel beams. The estimated street value of the cocaine was up to $1.5 billion.

On 3 April 2017, our client was informed by the shipping company that the container had been lost. On 24 October 2017, the undercover officer, reached out to the shipping company pretending to have found the container in New Zealand. A meeting was subsequently organised with the undercover officer and our client, to discuss the return of the container. Further meetings were held in Bangkok and in Perth, with other officers involved in an effort to return the missing container.

Our client was eventually arrested on 16 January 2018 in Serbia, after a meeting was held at the Metropolitan Hotel with undercover operatives and two other individuals, who we also arrested and charged. Our client was located outside the hotel during the meeting. Our client spent 6 months in Serbian prison before being extradited back to Australia and charged. For more information, see: man extradited from Serbia over $500 million drug import, Nine News 01 August 2018.

He eventually pleaded not guilty to the charges.

On 8 May 2023, our client went before the Downing Centre District Court for trial. The Crown case contained 15 volumes of evidence, including communications contained on encrypted devices between the undercover officer and members of the South American cartel and other individuals.

After a two-month trial and nine days of deliberation, 12 jurors acquitted our client of the conspiracy to import charge and found him guilty of conspiracy to possess the cocaine. The juror’s accepted our client’s evidence that his shipping container was ‘piggy-backed’ without his knowledge, by a business associate and close friend, who had already pleaded guilty to the importation.

For more information, see:

Two men cleared of importing cocaine into Australia but face sentencing for attempted possession, Nine News, 1 August 2023.

Pair cleared of plotting to import 1-2 tonnes of cocaine into Sydney, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 2023.

Photograph obtained from www.9news.com.au