Luke Daniel Mckenzie to stand trial for alleged drug trafficking

Encrypted text messages, bags of cash inside a mattress and ‘extremely suspicious’ cash deposit notes on a former miner’s bank account form the police case against a former miner turned car restorer. But his lawyer says there are legitimate sources.

“Extremely suspicious” notes on large cash deposits to a former miner’s bank account and text messages on an allegedly secret phone that could infer “drug activity” have convinced a magistrate the man should be sent to Queensland’s highest court to face a trial.

Luke Daniel Mckenzie — 38 when he was arrested in April 2021 — had worked in the mines, most recently Grasstree at Middlemount, for 19 years.

But he had stopped four months before police raided his West Mackay home and found $180,000 cash in cryovac bags in his mattress.

Mackay police raided the Lansdowne Road home on April 24, 2021 and made the find.

Police allege text messages found on a Threema app, similar to WhatsApp, on a Ciphr phone showed he was engaged in drug trafficking between March 20 and April 24, 2021.

Officers were wearing body-worn cameras and the footage was transcribed ahead of a committal hearing in Mackay Magistrates Court on Friday.

Still photo from body-worn footage during a raid at Mr Mckenzie’s West Mackay home. Picture: Supplied

The court heard Mr Mckenzie told police during the raid that the mattress money was a combination of savings from working in the mines, cryptocurrency and his new car restoration business.

The latter was going so well, he said, that he was studying for his motor vehicle dealer licence.

Barrister Alastair McDougall told the court his client had withdrawn bundles of cash because he did not trust banks.

He suggested investigating Detective David McKenzie should have looked at his client’s bank records going back more than 12 months to determine the source of the cash.

Mr McDougall, in making a no case to answer submission to the court, also argued there was no evidence to support a trafficking charge, that the text messages were equivocal.

“There’s no evidence at all that anything physically happened,” he said.

“I can’t find a single supply.

“My view is it’s up to Detective McKenzie to do his job and actually go and get the evidence upon which the Crown should rely.

“It’s not up to (my client) to walk into Mackay police station with a bundle of material that he’s gone to the expense of obtaining to show he came by that cash lawfully.

“Cash remains legal tender in this country.”

Police cannot intercept texts from Ciphr.

Prosecutor David Epstein argued there were text messages that would support a circumstantial case involving trafficking.

But he said they could not be viewed in a vacuum, rather as a whole to provide meaning and context.

Magistrate Bronwyn Hartigan found there was enough evidence to place the case before jurors in Mackay Supreme Court.

She said even if the evidence was weak, vague or tenuous, she had to commit Mr McKenzie to stand trial if there was a chance a jury properly instructed could deliver a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt.

“There are no messages of direct evidence of an actual sale of drugs, there are no customers who have provided witness statements, there is no convert operation evidence and there are no admissions,” she said.

“The Crown relies on $180,000 found in a bed mattress and messages on the platform Threema and the Cellebrite report produced.

“I have carefully looked at each of the messages, and my attention was drawn immediately to general terminology which could be inferred as reference to drug activity.”

Ms Hartigan said there was use of the word paper, often used to refer to money, talk of wanting to move bulk cash, trying to get better prices and trying to secure guns.

“I do consider upon a careful analysis of those messages in their context that they are capable of an inference … with respect to carrying on the business of trafficking,” she said.

Ms Hartigan said there was a text from a woman saying she was “paying about $4000 a ounce in a pounce”, believed to be referring to methylamphetamine.

“There are 16 ounces in a pound which is $281 per ounce … which equates to just a little cheaper than street value of $300 per gram which one might expect if one is buying in bulk,” the magistrate said.

“There is then a message from the defendant saying ‘4 is the aim’. That then equates to $250 per ounce which equates to about a $15 saving on street value.”

Police found $180,000 cash and phones in a mattress during a raid at a West Mackay home on April 24, 2021. Picture: Supplied

Ms Hartigan said there was also reference to rape tape and hurting people that she found “extremely concerning”.

She said the person using the phone police found at Mr Mckenzie’s home said he had $50,000 “sitting here waiting to be used” and someone else saying another person is “loaded with coin and gear”.

“All I can gather from the overall messages is a person, at least by the name of Fran, having rape tape which she uses and then she talks about there being a big order in Rockhampton,” she said.

“(One text message read) ‘I wouldn’t mind trying that stuff you had if you’re willing to give it up’.

“This is a reference to the rape tape it becomes evident when one continues to read the messages.

“At 11.04: I’ve got to go back to Bowen to get that.

“At 11.05: One of his guys is coming up to meet him at 3pm to drop paper for me to take tonight.

“It says he’s excited about that stuff because it’s easier if they can’t struggle.”

Ms Hartigan also references texts from Mr Mckenzie’s phone about being upset after finding out “one of his guys is skimming deliveries”.

“(The text says) he went to three houses with his favourite bat, two had kids and one wasn’t home.

“(The next text reads) ‘nothing f--ks me off more than going to f--k some c--t up and they survive because the kid’s around.

“(It says) ‘the guy I’m sending, he eats my table, he gets to Airlie now or I’ve told him he’s going to lose his position’ which suggests to my mind an inference of either a runner or someone often referred to as muscle.”

Ms Hartigan said there was also “devil in the detail” in respect to Mr Mckenzie’s bank account because there were regular large deposits at ATMs from a variety of people that could not be attributed to his earnings from the mines.

She said there was an instance were six cash deposits were made at an ATM in Mackay on the same day, noting some amounts over the 12 months were as high as $3500, $4650 and $2100.

“The references really cause me the most concern in terms of money going into the account of (Mr Mckenzie),” she said.

“The references in my view are extremely suspicious and, given the threshold to commit, while alone might not be enough, in concert with everything else it’s important.

“There’s a lot of references to loan repayments, a lot of references to credit to account, and all different people, then some that say gift, one that says IOU, others that say mwah (referring to a kiss) and one that says to big dildo, might be a joke.

“There just seems to be something off about those deposits in my view and there’s also the location of the money with the two Ciphr phone in the mattress.

“Ciphr phones, of course we all know, cannot be traced by police.

“All of those things together in my view do provide sufficient evidence in a circumstantial case to commit (Mr Mckenzie) to trial.”

THE TEXT MESSAGES

Some of the Threema texts allegedly between the phone Mr McKenzie gave police a pin for (LM phone) and someone known as Miss Be Hectic

MBH: Got some decent stuff here last night

LM phone: How many?

MBH: I will check with my guy here at price but I can definitely get stuff

MBH: Sweet I can get goods in Brissy easy. On way back to Mackay – be there later this arvo

LM phone: Need time to grab paper so need a number. I need to reload as soon as possible, … am I putting down a deposit or the total

LM phone: Finds out “one of his guys is skimming deliveries” and he’s upset. Says he “went to three houses with his favourite bat, two had kids and one wasn’t home”.

LM phone: Nothing f--ks me off more than going to f--k some c--t up and they survive because the kid’s around.

LM phone: The guy I’m sending, he eats my table, he gets to Airlie now or I’ve told him he’s going to lose his position.’

MBH says she can get three guns (glocks) at a time and picks them up south of Mackay.

LM phone says he has a car going to Brisbane in a couple of hours and wants to send them south. But when he doesn’t get them in time, he says he will have to sell them locally.

LM phone: What’s my cost?

MBH: $4500, I’ll get three for $9000.