Alleged drug kingpin extradited from Serbia over $500m cocaine shipment
A year after he was arrested in Belgrade over one of Australia's largest cocaine shipments, Tristan Waters has been extradited and will appear in Sydney Central Local Court on Thursday. The 35-year-old has been languishing in a Serbian jail since his arrest on January 16, 2018.
Police allege that he and two other men, Rohan Arnold and David Campbell, who were extradited last year, were involved in the importation of a shipment of cocaine, worth half a billion dollars, which arrived in Sydney in April 2017.
Australian Border Force officers found 1.28 tonnes of cocaine in 2,576 individual blocks. The drugs were hidden in pre-fabricated steel on a container ship which sailed from China.
The AFP will allege Mr Waters was involved with the organising and financing of the importation. He will face charges of importing a commercial quantity of border controlled drugs and conspiracy offences.
The Federal Police are not the only people who have had an interest in Mr Waters, a builder from Canberra.
Liquidators of Hartford Investments, a company run by Peter Larcombe, the alleged mastermind of a $150 million fraud against the Australian Taxation Office, were keen to examine both Tristan Waters and his mother, Anna, over mysterious movements of large sums of money that went from Mr Larcombe's company into entities associated with them.
But with Mrs Waters believed to be in the Czech Republic and her son in a Serbian jail as he fought the efforts to extradite him to Australia, the examinations have been delayed.
Mr Waters' alleged co-conspirator in the cocaine importation, Rohan Arnold, was grilled by Hugh Somerville, the barrister for the liquidator trying to recoup millions of dollars which went out of the company prior to its collapse in 2016.
Mr Arnold, a 44-year-old Murrumbateman businessman, had difficulty explaining why a company he had set up in Hong Kong had received a payment of close to $5 million in early 2017 or why he had received payments in 2016 totalling more than $1.7 million from Hartford Investments, a company for which he did no work.
The liquidator's examination has heard that the real owner of Hartford was the mysterious Peter Larcombe, who had links to the Comanchero bikie gang.
Before he leapt to his death at Los Angeles airport in August, 2016, Mr Larcombe is alleged to have absconded with millions of dollars from the ATO tax fraud which he is believed to have established with his one-time close associate Adam Cranston, who has been charged over the ATO fraud.
Hartford Investments shared the same office in Cross Street, Double Bay as Mr Cranston's businesses.
Mr Arnold told the court that his million-dollar plus payment was for his 20 years' worth of "intellectual property" from doing deals in China.
Mr Arnold, a steel importer, claimed the payment also included his wealth of experience gained from importing "hundreds of containers of goods" from China.
Mr Waters arrived in Sydney on Wednesday night flanked by officers from Operation Amorgos, an AFP-led investigation into Mr Water's alleged organised crime syndicate.