By Sarah McPhee
Two Australian men who were dramatically arrested at a Serbian hotel after a global police sting have been found not guilty of conspiring to import more than a tonne of cocaine into Sydney, but will be sentenced for their roles in a planned money swap for the drugs.
Former nightclub boss Tristan Egon Sebastian Waters, 40, and Canberra businessman David Edward John Campbell, 54, faced a two-month trial in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court, five-and-a-half years after they were nabbed at the Metropol Palace hotel in Belgrade.
Tristan Waters (left) and David Campbell faced a two-month trial in the NSW District Court for their alleged roles in a cocaine shipment from China.
Border Force found 1.2 tonnes of impure cocaine, calculated by investigators as 917 kilograms of pure cocaine, hidden within steel beams in a shipping container from China on April 1, 2017. The court heard it had an estimated street value of up to $1.5 billion.
What followed was a months-long operation, spanning multiple countries, as the Australian Federal Police pretended the container had been lost.
Under the guise of “Henry”, an undercover officer pretended to have found the haul in New Zealand in October 2017 and requested a finder’s fee of $3 million. A handover of cash, in exchange for the cocaine, was planned in Perth and Serbia.
Photographs of money and drugs were exchanged and a suitcase of €630,000 ($1 million) was brought to the hotel in January 2018 by a third man, Rohan Arnold, who is serving a 27-year jail term.
Waters and Arnold attended the meeting, while Campbell was arrested outside in a car. In his evidence, Campbell said he had a firearm because someone approached him at a cafe and said, “you look like a tourist”, or words to that effect, and “it’s not safe for tourists, you better have a gun”.
Operation Amorgos began in April 2017 after Border Force officers found more than a tonne of cocaine concealed in a shipping container.Credit: Australian Federal Police
Waters and Campbell pleaded not guilty to conspiring to import a commercial quantity of cocaine between January and October 2017. Campbell also denied conspiring to possess the drug between October 2017 and January 2018, while Waters pleaded guilty to that charge.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The jury retired on July 18 and spent two weeks deliberating before returning with their verdicts on Tuesday, finding Waters and Campbell not guilty of the importation conspiracy, but Campbell guilty of the possession conspiracy.
Crown prosecutor Sean Flood had alleged Waters was among a trio “in a principal role” at the top of the importation conspiracy, and relied on alleged admissions or confessions made as Waters spoke with an undercover officer named “Ivan” at the hotel.
He said Waters told Ivan he was there to represent two others, called Gov and MC, and described himself as “the most level-headed out of the three”.
The prosecutor said Waters was recorded saying: “None of us knew where this was.”
“Everyone thought we all robbed each other. Gov was threatening me, I’m threatening MC, MC’s threatening me, we’re all going back and forth … for eight months,” Waters allegedly said.
Waters’ barrister David Dalton, SC, said there was nothing to indicate Waters was doing anything in relation to the enterprise until he booked his flights and accommodation for Belgrade.
“Nowhere in this meeting [in Serbia on January 16, 2018] does Mr Waters say, ‘I’ve been in this from the start, I was involved in the importation’,” Dalton said.
He submitted “everybody was playing roles” in the meeting.
Prosecutors alleged Campbell was “well aware of the quantity of border-controlled drug” concealed within the shipment, as he had travelled to western Sydney in April 2017, had planned for the shipping container to be delivered to Llandilo, bought a van and hired a forklift and a truck.
Seeking its return, Campbell flew to Auckland in October 2017, and met with undercover officers at the JetPark Hotel. The Crown alleged a comment made by Campbell, about the steel being “special”, indicated his state of knowledge.
Campbell denied having any knowledge of the cocaine inside the container, and argued a defence of duress. He said he received threats against himself and his family after the shipment went missing and tried to get it back to ensure their safety.
His barrister Ronald Driels argued that Campbell was an outsider, “squeezed” by the Australian Federal Police as they sought major players in an international criminal drug syndicate.
Waters and Campbell, who have been in custody since 2018, will face a sentence hearing in October.
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