Sydney: Man smuggled ecstasy worth $45m | Australia

Sydney: Man smuggled ecstasy worth $45m

A man used his legitimate trading business to smuggle more than 100 kilograms of ecstasy into Australia from Israel in hot water systems, his lawyer says.
Benjamin Rosenfeld, 46, is awaiting sentence after being convicted by a jury of importing a commercial quantity of MDMA. Crown Prosecutor Paul McGuire told the Sydney District Court,
Rosenfeld had arranged the entire operation from start to finish, including picking up the hot water tanks from an Israeli factory and driving them to the shipping yard.

Once in Australia, he arranged for the three hot water systems to be kept at a northern Sydney storage facility.

Mr McGuire said customs officers opened the systems when they entered Australia and found 172 tennis ball canisters.

Inside they found 112kg of MDMA powder of 80.3 per cent purity.

This equated to 90.35kg of pure MDMA with a value of up to $13.5 million, Mr McGuire said.

"That amount is 180 times the prescribed commercial quantity set out (by law)," he told Judge Anthony Puckeridge.

"This was a sizeable, substantial and significant importation in relation to quality and quantity."

The drugs would have been enough for 1.2 million street deals with a value of up to $45 million, he said.

Mr McGuire asked the judge to consider a sentence of up to life imprisonment, saying it was among the most serious offences in the range.

But Rosenfeld's lawyer, Ian McClintock SC, argued he was not the sole organiser of an illegal racket but had merely allowed his legitimate export business to be used to run drugs.

"What one is left with is a man who was running a legitimate business who, within the legitimate business, (saw) there was an opportunity.

"That is opportunistic, no doubt.

"But as to who took that opportunity, there is very little evidence."

There were "almost certainly others" involved in the plot, with the wrapping and the packing of the canisters alone an "extraordinarily onerous task", Mr McClintock said.

The hearing continues.

http://news.smh.com.au

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