Oz Cocaine kingpins face music over 1.2 tonne cocaine bust

David Campbell, 53, pleaded not guilty to conspiring to import and conspiring to possess. Tristan Waters, 39, pleaded guilty to the possession conspiracy charge but not guilty to the importation conspiracy charge. The two men are on trial in the District Court in Sydney. Border Force examined a shipping container from Shanghai on April 1, 2017 and found 2500 blocks totalling 1.28 tonnes of cocaine concealed within prefabricated steel.

Rohan Arnold, 43, had been denied bail after being charged with five counts of importing a commercial quantity of drugs. At more than 1.2 tonnes of cocaine, it was the second largest cocaine seizure in Australian history. The stockyard director and steel importer was one of three men arrested following the discovery of cocaine hidden inside hollow prefabricated steel on a Chinese container boat in Sydney.

Unknown to the traffickers, the shipping container had been covertly seized by Australian authorities.

The 2576 blocks of cocaine had a retail street value in Australia of half a billion dollars. Arnold - along with Tristan Waters, 34, and David Campbell, 48 were detained at gunpoint in a Serbian hotel, where a bag containing $1 million cash was being exchanged.