The Australian Federal Police ran a months-long operation after Border Force found 2576 blocks of impure cocaine totalling approximately 1.2 tonnes concealed within steel in a shipping container from China in April 2017.
Police initially pretended the container was lost and that it had then turned up in New Zealand later that year,asking for a finder’s fee of $3 million. The court has heard the sting culminated with a planned handover of $2 million in Perth and €630,000 ($1 million) in Serbia in exchange for the drugs.
Waters has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug between January 2017 and October 2017,but guilty to conspiring to possess a commercial quantity of cocaine between October 2017 and January 2018. Campbell has denied both charges.
In his closing address on Wednesday,noting Waters’ father and wife Sian Warren were in the public gallery in support,defence barrister David Dalton,SC,said his client would be “punished” for the possession conspiracy charge he has admitted,“and justifiably so”.
He said the charges before the court carry potential maximum penalties of life imprisonment,but told the jury,“it’s not for you to concern yourself with the sentences,there’s no fear or favour in the process of which you should apply yourselves”.
Dalton argued the Crown was asking the jury to undertake “retrospective reasoning” for the importation charge. He said there had been an “immense amount of surveillance” of Arnold and Campbell,and Waters’ phone was the subject of a warrant from April 2017,but there was nothing to indicate Waters was doing anything in relation to the enterprise until he booked his flights and accommodation for Belgrade.