A Sydney man has been hauled off to jail after using power tools to try securing over 140kg in pure heroin hidden inside industrial bakery equipment imported from Malaysia.
Wade Habkouk was convicted on Wednesday over his role in a plot to import more than 250kg of pure heroin into Australia.
The drugs were hidden inside two vertical mixers on a cargo plane which flew into Sydney from Kuala Lumpur in December 2020.
In February 2021, police saw the 31-year-old entering a leased unit in the suburb of Hornsby where one of the vertical mixers was held.
That mixer had previously contained 143kg in pure heroin before the machine was opened up and seized by the Australian Federal Police.
On Wednesday after a day of deliberations, a jury found Wade Habkouk guilty of one count of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug unlawfully imported into Australia.
After his bail was revoked, the construction boss hugged family members in court before being handcuffed by corrective services officers and led away.
During the trial, jurors heard the importation plot had been headed up by older brother Guy Habkouk, 35, who had flown to Thailand in March 2020.
Soon after the consignment arrived, Australian Border Force officers opened the vertical mixers to find lead boxes containing over 900 individual packets of heroin, the jury heard.
Guy Habkouk allegedly purchased an RFD tracer to detect surveillance devices a week before his younger brother tried to extract the drugs.
Police saw Wade Habkouk enter the leased unit alone carrying a hard case crown prosecutors claimed contained the tracer.
Their listening devices also picked up sounds of power tools from within the premises.
The vertical mixer was later found discarded and cut open in another man's vehicle.
No one attempted to open up the second vertical mixer, which was shipped containing 108kg of pure heroin and left abandoned at a Greenacre removalists.
In closing submissions, defence barrister Thomas Jones argued that while his client had leased the Hornsby unit, he also used it for his construction business.
The sounds of power tools captured by police could have been made during legitimate business activity, he said.
Wade Habkouk will face a sentence hearing on April 19.
The case against Guy Habkouk is ongoing in the Downing Centre Local Court and no criminal findings have been made against him.
