An Australian businessman travelled across the ditch as part of a sting operation by undercover police who were posing as a drug cartel that claimed to have found masses of missing cocaine in New Zealand.
The Kiwi link to the scheme to import $1.5 billion of cocaine to Australia re-emerged at the sentencing this week in the New South Wales District Court of David John Edward Campbell for conspiring to possess a commercial quantity of cocaine.
The scheme was foiled by police and burst into public view with the arrest of three men at a hotel in the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2018, the ABC reported. They were extradited to Australia to face prosecution.
Campbell was the last of a trio to be sentenced for his involvement. Canberra businessman Rohan Arnold received 27 years in jail in 2020 after pleading guilty to conspiring to import 1.2 tonnes of cocaine into Australia.
Fellow Canberra businessman Campbell and nightclub boss Tristan Waters faced a two-month trial last year in Sydney, nearly six years after their dramatic arrest in Belgrade, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A jury found them not guilty of conspiring to import the drugs, but returned a guilty verdict for Campbell on the lesser charge of conspiring to possess a commercial quantity of cocaine.
Read more at
