Moron or mastermind? Man accused of $400m meth import plot bailed

A Queenslander charged over an alleged $400 million meth oil import plot is accused of having links to serious transnational crime but lawyers say he’s so cognitively challenged he struggles with everyday tasks.

Bottles from the bust. Pic: Supplied

A Queenslander charged over an alleged $400 million meth oil import plot is accused of having links to serious transnational crime but lawyers say he’s so cognitively challenged he struggles with everyday tasks.

Aleki Keith Fakaanga is one of three men charged over an alleged plot to smuggle 1280l of liquid meth hidden in juice bottles into Queensland.

The 31-year-old NDIS recipient applied for bail in Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Friday on a charge of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border controlled drug (methamphetamine).

The court heard a shipment originating from Canada arrived in Australia in June 2024 containing 10 pallets of mainly fruit juice.

However the crown alleged that 1278 of the glass bottles, about two pallets worth, contained liquid meth.

The total shipment was delivered to a shed, where federal police had installed surveillance devices, in Jimboomba near Logan on September 11.

Fakaanga was allegedly recorded inside the shed when the shipment was accessed.

Police raided the property and seized his phone which alleged contained instructions on how to locate the spiked bottles.

The shed where the shipment was accessed. Pic: Supplied.

Fakaanga’s barrister Martin Longhurst said the allegations suggested his client was acting “completely under instruction” with no reference to specific drugs, purity, weight, on sale or financial benefit.

He said a complete defence to the charge was not knowing the drugs had been imported to Australia and there was no evidence suggesting he knew.

Mr Longhust said his client was on the NDIS due to mental impairment that placed his intelligence in the third percentile.

“Much of his (criminal) history is wilful damages by graffiti, spray paint on public transport and the like ….so it really bears out, his history, as someone who has a relatively young mindset but certainly not someone engaged in sophisticated drug networks,” he said.

Fakaanga’s NDIS support worker said in an affidavit he was bewildered and in disbelief at the allegations given the defendant he knew was “simply lacking the intellectual cognitive ability to do anything other than the most menial of tasks”.

The shipment inside the shed in Jimboomba.

Barrister Lara Soldi, acting for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, said the description was in “stark” contrast to the text messages found on Fakaanga’s phone where he allegedly offered to supply a gram of cocaine and some cannabis on occasion but for which he has not been charged.

Ms Soldi alleged Fakaanga had paid the forklift driver who shifted the pallets, gave a brown paper bag to the delivery driver and was responding to changing instructions that mentioned spiked bottles.

“It is difficult to imagine what they could be spiked with, other than an illicit substance,” she said.

She also said his strong links to the Logan area should not give the court comfort.

“Because it would seem it’s precisely where he has met people in order to associate with such serious criminality,” she said.

Justice Cooper said there was a risk of further offending but was satisfied the proposed bail conditions ameliorate the risk.

Fakaanga was granted bail with conditions including a $20,000 surety, a curfew, reporting three times a week to police, the use of only one phone, without encryption, that must be provided to police on request, a restriction on leaving logan, the surrender of his Tongan passport and the wearing of a GPS tracker.