Not Guilty of Large Commercial Drug Supply

Last week Astor Legal appeared at Downing Centre District Court in relation to a charge of large commercial quantity drug supply.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had conducted an undercover operation where they discovered a consignment of concrete and solar panels which had over 100 kilograms of heroin secreted inside. The AFP replaced the heroin with an inert substance and then tracked the consignment.

Our client drove a truck from Sydney to Brisbane to collect a consignment from a shipping yard along with another person. Following this, our client drove the consignment back to a warehouse.

Our client returned the next day and began unloading the consignment. He took photos of himself with the consignment which were later located on his phone.

AFP officers raided the warehouse and arrested our client. They also conducted an interview with our client where he claimed that another person had paid him to deliver the consignment and that he had been doing this for some time. Police also raised our client’s home where they located close to $1 million worth of jewellery, ledgers of payments and a letter authorising our client to collect the consignment.

After obtaining the brief of evidence we began preparing our client’s defence. It became clear that there was a lack of inculpatory evidence against our client. Police had no evidence of our client preparing the letter authorising him to collect the consignment. Indeed, it was signed by the person who our client claimed had paid him to collect it. The ledger also showed our client receiving the least money out of all persons on the ledger – which suggested his role was minor.

Under cross-examination during the Trial, the officer in charge was shown to have conducted a lax investigation. There was no evidence that our client had any knowledge that there were drugs in the consignment nor that he has masterminded a drug importation as the prosecution alleged.

Ultimately the jury took less than two days to reach a verdict. Our client was found not guilty and released after almost two years fighting the case.

Our client and his family were overjoyed at the result.