Meth dealer George Awkar’s AN0M texts revealed

A former pizza bar boss sent and received more than 5800 messages he thought were secret — now they’ve been revealed to the world.

The message exchange started with a friendly “yiasoo”, an informal greeting from one drug dealer to another over an encrypted app they all thought was impregnable.

At 5.30pm on March 26, 2020, George Awkar started receiving his first messages on his specially equipped AN0M phone for which he was paying a princely sum of $1250 for six months of the service.

George Awkar, a former pizza bar owner who became a major dealer.

Court released photos which had been sent over the encrypted AN0M app between George Awkar and his drug supplier. Picture: District Court

Over the next 14 months Awkar would send and receive around 5800 messages over the device discussing the inner workings of the drug syndicate of which he was a part.

Awkar’s supplier says at times that his other connections - coined “north” and “south” - are moving several kilograms of methamphetamine a week.

The message exchange only came to an end in June 2021 when police burst through Awkar’s front door – while at the same time members of the same syndicate were arrested across the state.

Currently there are eight men, including Awkar, charged with 79 charges of trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine and money laundering across South Australia.

All but Awkar, who has pleaded guilty, have indicated they will be challenging the case against them.

The following concerns Awkar and is drawn from documents filed with the Court.

George Awkar, a former pizza bar owner, became a major drug dealer. Picture: Facebook

The Instructions

The first instruction from Awkar’s supplier was to change his user handle on the app to “Pizza”.

The next step was to organise the first drop at Awkar’s Semaphore Park home.

On the morning of March 27, 2020, Awkar left the key to his car on the front wheel of his car and went to work.

While he was gone a drug courier dropped four kilograms of methamphetamine, worth at that time a little under $500,000 in the car.

The messages from the supplier told Awkar to store 2kg of the drugs before shipping another kilogram off to a named dealer and the other to the supplier’s “good mate”.

“Ures is 104 each, don’t tell (the other dealer) about the price,” the supplier messaged.

Over the following days and in a pattern which would be repeated over and over in the message chains, the supplier asked for feedback on the quality of the “gear”.

“Get it out soon as possible – my north mate love look of it, he said killer,” the supplier wrote.

“Get people smoke today get me feedback.”

The reports in that first week were positive.

“Reports are 7 out of 10, burns fast and has a bit of funny taste at the beginning,” Awkar replied.

“We have all good reports … our fussy guys said 7 but they never say its killer.”

The Dry Spell

In April 2020 as borders across the world started to slam shut to slow the spread of Covid-19 – the price of drugs started to skyrocket.

The messages show that a kilogram of methamphetamine went from around the $100,000 mark to in excess of $240,000.

The supplier explained that “all big importers shut up shop, only 50kg a time getting through”.

He predicted that the price of an ounce of methamphetamine, which had been hovering around $5-7,000 would hit $18,000 “like it did five years ago”.

“Even $230k, that’s good price considering what its going for,” Awkar wrote on May 29, 2020.

To compound matters, the drugs the syndicate were pushing to street were not meeting with positive feedback.

“One person tried and said a strong taste of some sort of chemical like petrol or fuel,” Awkar wrote.

“Another person said the same thing but he said it taste like turpentine. I don’t know if they telling the truth or trying to stop taking from me.”

The supplier questioned the veracity of the Awkar’s users only to be told that more reviewers had come out of the woodwork.

“Bro, I am telling you the comment from four different people,” Awkar said.

“And its impossible that they all coming with the same complaint.

“Tastes like burnt turp, hurt the throat, instant headache. I just returned an (ounce) for someone and another one wants his money back.”

Of the four kilograms pushed to the streets, the syndicate was forced to return almost 3.5kg to the distributor.

The Local Wet

To try and keep their market share the supplier gave Awkar kilograms of “wet” – crystals which have the same appearance as crystal methamphetamine which are soaked in methamphetamine oil.

But Awkar’s customers were used to using and pushing “dry” methamphetamine.

“Smell good but very wet, its leaking out heaps” Awkar wrote.

Dried, the crystals lost around an ounce of weight per kilogram, raising further ire from Awkar and the dealers.

“(It’s very) hard bro people, complaining they want dry,” Awkar wrote.

“If someone can get rid of it just tell them to come pick up whatever they want.

“I am trying my best even went down to 4k (per ounce) to move it but its not moving like it suppose to.”

The messages show the “wet” supply was coming from a Sydney lab.

The alternative to the local supply was methamphetamine bought in from overseas – but with a risk to quality as importers sought to “chop” the drugs with cutting agents.

“I can get u import between 4600 and 4900 (per ounce) but both test with chop,” the supplier wrote.

“It’s bullshit importers chopping oseas now its sly as f***. One tested 30 per cent chop the good one has 10 to 15 per cent chop.”

A year later, the syndicate had the opposite problem. Instead of wet crystals they were dealing dry, powdery product brought in from overseas.

“Its cut Mexican crap. Dust I seen it to,” the supplier wrote in May, 2021.

“They b sik the dusty powder in week.”

The Pinch

In May, 2021 the AN0M phone of one of Awkar’s fellow dealers went dark.

The dealer had been Awkar’s only other contact over AN0M and the pair had exchanged friendly greetings while discussing how their stashes were moving and when to pick up more of the drugs.

Messages between the supplier and Awkar show mounting concern as the dealer does not answer his phone or respond on normal channels.

The supplier tries to fob off the disappearance - the dealer is a young man about town, maybe he is just shacked up with someone.

“He’s been on tinder a bit hopefully he’s just with some chick,” the supplier wrote.

“I hope he didn’t get pulled over with kg.

“Can u google court listings or anything?”

As the days passed the supplier got increasingly nervous.

“Really need to ring all jails from private number phone box given false name asking if he in there,” he wrote.

“If so we send in money orders and can organise lawyer.”

It was more than a week before they discovered the other trafficker had been arrested with half a kilo of methamphetamine and was on home detention - without any electronic devices.

A week later, on June 6, the AN0M platform was shutdown and Awkar and the supplier were arrested.

Originally published as Meth dealer George Awkar’s AN0M texts revealed