Timothy Engstrom pleads not guilty over 380kg cocaine haul in excavator
One of two men accused of importing a massive haul of cocaine from South Africa hidden inside an excavator will challenge the case at trial next year.
Canberra Star
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One of two men accused of being behind a massive haul of cocaine hidden inside an excavator will contest the allegations against him.
Queanbeyan landscaper Timothy Engstrom, 36, was on Tuesday committed to stand trial in the NSW District Court, and pleaded not guilty to importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.
Engstrom and his co-accused business partner, Adam Hunter, 34, and also of Queanbeyan, are accused of bringing in 380kg of cocaine to Australia from South Africa, hidden expertly inside a second hand excavator.
His trial is likely to go ahead in 2021.
Hunter has indicated he will likely plead guilty and is due to face court again later this month.
The two were arrested in July last year after an elaborate sting by Border Force and Federal Police, including dozens of tapped phone calls.
Prosecutors will allege the two men’s landscaping business, Bungendore Landscape Supplies, was failing and that they were in desperate need of cash when they imported the largest haul of cocaine the region has seen, and one of the largest in NSW history.
An intricate police investigation saw 384 bricks of cocaine, each weighing about 1kg each, substituted for an inert white powder and welded inside the arm of the excavator before being delivered to the business.
On a camera installed at the landscaping business, the two men were allegedly filmed high-fiving after cutting the excavator arm open, although Engstrom’s lawyers have previously argued he was carrying out a legitimate repair on the 20-tonne machine.
Engstrom’s trial is likely to run for four or five weeks, and involve hours of telephone intercepts.
His lawyers have previously argued the phone intercepts show little more than legitimate day-to-day conversations about money and running his landscaping business.
Hunter first indicated his likely guilty plea in August, although negotiations between his lawyers and prosecutors have dragged out.
Hunter’s case returns to the Local Court on October 19.