Eli Joseph Wapau, 41, has been sentenced to six years’ jail for possessing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
Federal police officers arrested Wapau and Patterson Mosby, 41, as 110kg of cocaine was being loaded into a car at a far north Queensland wharf.
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Jamal Kris, 38, is also due to face court next month, accused of involvement in bringing the drugs through the Torres Strait.
A man caught with a multi-million-dollar cocaine haul has told a court that far from expecting to get paid for helping bring it to the Australian mainland, he was just doing “a favour for a mate”.
Police were waiting near Seisia wharf at the top of Cape York Peninsula when Eli Joseph Wapau, 41, Patterson Mosby, 41, and another man, alleged to be Jamal Kris, 38, arrived in a dinghy with the cocaine in September 2024.
The Supreme Court in Cairns this week heard the 110 kilograms of cocaine had a street value of between $11 million and $21 million.
Justice James Henry said the case was an example of Torres Strait Islanders “taking an extraordinary risk for relatively limited monetary reward”.
Today, he sentenced Wapau to six years behind bars.
