Australia’s largest ever “meth bust” — the culmination of what was described by Australian Federal Police (AFP) as “the result of complex multi-agency investigation that traversed the country”.
It all started in July of that year, when police got wind of a successful importation of methamphetamine, involving a mid-ocean rendezvous between an Australian boat called the Valkoista and an “Asian mothership”.
That led to officers installing a secret recording device on the Valkoista which, months later in December, recorded the same thing happening again.
Those secret recordings were played to the multiple court hearings that followed, with an Asian voice heard saying “money, money” before the sound of thuds — bags of the drugs being loaded onto the Valkoista.
The key to the transaction — the “money, money” — was a half-torn $10 Hong Kong bank note, which each party produced to confirm their identities.
The Valkoista then made its way to the port city of Geraldton, where 59 bags of the drugs were transferred to a white hire van.
That’s when the authorities pounced, with heavily armed police officers intercepting the vehicle as it reversed off the jetty.
The drugs were seized, and the half-torn bank note that was the key to the transaction was found among the possessions of one of the men who was charged over the importation.
Arrests across the country
In total, 10 men were accused of involvement in the drug operation.
Six of them were arrested at the scene – three members of the so called “boat crew” from the Valkoista, and three members of the “ground crew” who were picking up the drugs.
Another two men, who were alleged to have been going to collect some of the drugs, were taken into custody in Perth.
The final two accused were arrested in New South Wales in the following weeks, with one of them, Jabour Lahood, alleged to have been one of the main organisers of the whole importation.
The other was Peter Harb, accused of organising the ground crew.
While their initial sentencing hearings were held in open court, they were sentenced behind closed doors and the terms they received remain suppressed.
The remaining seven men all maintained their innocence.
Their first trial, in Western Australia’s Supreme Court, started in March 2021, but after five weeks, the jury, which had hardly spent any time in court hearing evidence, was dismissed.
In the months that followed there were hours and hours of pre-trial legal argument, some of it in hearings that were conducted behind closed doors.
One of the men, Patrick Bouhamdan, who was on the Valkoista when the drugs were handed over, was given a separate trial.
Then a week before the scheduled retrial of the other six men, another accused, South Australian Stephen Baxter, walked free after the charge against him was dropped.
Drug transfer ‘sheer chaos’
The trial of the remaining five men started in August last year.
The witnesses included Valkoista skipper Joshua Smith, a former oyster farmer from New South Wales, who detailed the late-night transfer of the drugs from the mothership in rough seas.
“That was sheer chaos, given everything that was going on,” Smith told the court.
He said as he manoeuvred his vessel alongside the boat, there was shouting, and he saw seven or eight men of Asian appearance.
After the captain of the other boat made “sort of like a rectangular sign” with his hands, Smith said he saw Patrick Bouhamdan, who was on the Valkoista, get something from his personal effects.”He retrieved a portion of a bank note. He put it through the Valkoista’s window to where the other fellow [on the mothership] was,” he said.abcaustralia