Alleged drug traffickers lose appeal to avoid extradition to Australia
Two gangsters will be escorted back to Sydney under heavy security to face multiple drug trafficking charges after a Dubai court quashed their extradition appeal.
World
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NSW Police will make a second attempt to bring two gangsters back to Sydney from Dubai to face multiple charges related to their alleged involvement in the trafficking of almost three tonnes of drugs to Australia.
Police had assembled one of its largest ever contingents of officers to bring Benjamin Neil Pitt and Matthew John Battah back to Australia but literally in the last minutes available to them they lodged an appeal against extradition.
That appeal has now been thrown out of a Dubai court and the men, currently in custody, have been ordered to be returned to Australia under escort.
The details of their return is known but cannot be published for security reasons.
They are however expected back in Australia within a fortnight under what one police source close to the case said was extremely tight and significant security.
Their expected return will be the culmination of a seven-year NSW police operation to smash a national network of money laundering, criminal operators and the trafficking of at least four drug hauls worth $1.5 billion.
The pair had lost their UAE court bid to be extradited to Australia back in August and plans were already underway to bring them back with the time limit to launch an appeal set to lapse within 24 hours.
But on the 11th hour a legal challenge was launched, blindsiding authorities.
Such was the confidence their return was supposed to go smooth, Dubai police even made a mini three-minute movie of the pair’s arrest and expected return.
It’s not clear whether they will request a film clip “take 2” of the taken two.
The grounds for the appeal were never clear.
As previously reported the pair was never going to return home and indeed were about to fly to a third country with limited extradition prospects before NSW and Australian Federal Police made their move.
“Dubai (police) have been great in terms of how they have assisted … they don’t want to be seen as a haven for organised crime … they even made a video of the arrest, it’s like a trailer for a movie,” one officer involved in the case said.
The pair, who have not been charged, left Australia in 2015 and lived lavish lifestyles overseas as NSW Police detectives from Strike Force Millstream tracked them travelling between the UAE and Europe including on holidays with family and friends.
They are allegedly linked to Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Lone Wolf and its president Erkan Keskin, also wanted for questioning by NSW and Queensland police and believed to be living in Turkey.
They are the last people allegedly involved in a huge drug smuggling operation that since 2013 had dispatched tonnes of drugs to Australia in shipping containers from the Netherlands and Germany.
The pair’s specific role in the enterprise was not clear but police have described them as allegedly being king pins at the top of a pyramid conspiracy to traffic narcotics and dealing with proceeds of crime in the tens of millions of dollars.
When the pair was arrested they were about to leave UAE prompting an Interpol “Red Notice” calling for an arrest to be made at “zero hour”.
Dubai dispatched heavily armed police in what Police Commander in Chief Lt General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri described as an example of top international co-operation that showed UAE’s forces maintained strong, active, and vital communication channels with the world’s police agencies and contributed to the world’s safety and security.