Salvatore Formica and Aiden Khodher front court over drugs

A Melbourne pizza chef has fessed up to his role in a scarface-like operation to fly 500kg of coke into Australia that crashed like the fictional mob boss’ drug empire.

The light plane piloted by unlicensed pilot David Cutmore that crashed near Port Moresby with $80m worth of cocaine bound for Far North Queensland, and then to Melbourne.

Two Melbourne men allegedly part of the Calabrian mafia have been revealed as major players in a plot to fly $80m worth of cocaine into Australia from Papua New Guinea that failed after the heavily laden plane crashed during take off.

Pizza chef Salvatore “Sam” Formica, 38 and labourer Aiden Anis Khodher were members of an Italian organised crime gang who loaded up a twin-engined Cessna with 500kg worth of coke, worth an estimated $80m.

According to documents tendered in court during Formica’s first appearance, police said Formica’s importation plans were so ambitious that had the import succeeded, the ring would have imported 20 per cent of Australia’s total annual cocaine consumption of 400 tonnes a year.

Aiden Anis Khodher has fessed up to his role in a bungled attempt to smuggle $80m worth of cocaine into Australia in a light plane.

Police believed he “has been an active member of a transnational organised criminal syndicate alleged to be the ’Ndrangheta” which has majority control of international cocaine trafficking as well as involvement in co-ordinated extortion, murder and money laundering.

Formica went by the code name “Captain Morgan” on his encrypted phone for chats with his fellow plotters while the Iraqi-born Khodher went by the handle “Glenfiddich”.

Their plan was to fly the plane as a “black flight” from a makeshift runway near the PNG capital Port Moresby, and enter Australian airspace at just 3000 feet, landing at Mareeba in Far North Queensland on July 26, 2020.

The stash of cocaine an organised crime gang planned to fly from Papua New Guinea to Far North Queensland and on to Melbourne by road.

But the plot was brought undone when the plane, piloted by convicted Australian bird smuggler and unlicensed pilot David John Cutmore, crashed while trying to take off.

Cutmore, who went by the codename “Top Gun”, and PNG syndicate members hastily unloaded the drugs before authorities arrived and hid them in mangroves near a village until they were later found by PNG police.

He told police he was promised $2m for three “black flights” from PNG, having previously received $500,000 for the successful 2018 import.

He was caught on tape joking to his work colleagues that he would “do a Tom Cruise, covered in powder, land in the street” on his return from PNG to Queensland.

Cutmore handed himself in at the Australian High Commission two days later and was jailed for 18 years.

Formica is alleged to have taken a hands-on role in an earlier successful mission to smuggle 300kg of cocaine, worth about $90m, to Queensland by air in August 2018.

The drugs, which were never located, was then allegedly smuggled to Melbourne hidden in the false floor of a box trailer towed by a ute.

An alleged syndicate member is arrested at Atherton, Queensland.

It was this flight that caught the attention of authorities and, according to police documents tendered in an earlier court proceeding, an elite task force of anti-organised crime police began following the money trail and watching as the drug ring sent funds for the servicing of the plane in preparation for the next illegal flight in July 2020.

Khodher and Formica were captured on CCTV cameras at various bank branches around Melbourne suburbs from Moonee Ponds, to Flemington and Seddon, depositing cash allegedly to be used to buy the light plane, pay for its upkeep and pay the PNG associates.

Formica is in custody while Khodher has been released on bail with a $1m surety provided by four people, including his sister.

Both men will be back in court on May 26.

Originally published as Salvatore Formica and Aiden Khodher front court over drugs