Harpreet Flora, Mathurshan Sangarathasan plead guilty to drug supply in dark web operation after Bella Vista arrest
Two men were confident they could evade police but their sales of cocaine and crystal meth – some concealed in curry boxes – on the dark web were under close surveillance. Here’s how the operation came to a dramatic halt.
Hills Shire
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Two men have admitted supplying drugs – some hidden in chicken and fish curry packages – in a dark web operation that came to a dramatic halt when police swooped on them in northwest Sydney.
Harpreet Flora and Mathurshan Sangarathasan joined alleged “primary member” Mayuran Devakumar in supplying the drugs on the internet in exchange for cryptocurrency and cash, between October 2023 and April 2024.
Little did they know the police had been covertly tracking their moves and intercepting phone calls for months.
An agreed set of facts tendered to the court reveal the trio’s arrest in Bella Vista followed the supply of drugs by vendor “HQoz’’on a darknet marketplace known as Abacus Market.
NSW Police had engaged undercover operatives to purchase drugs 11 times using more than $9000 in crypto before the Flora and Sangarathasan would post the orders – ranging between 3.5g to 42g of meth and cocaine – on each occasion.
Flora’s role was strictly to drop meth – often in packaging disguised as curry boxes – in the post on two “discrete occasions”.
The 26-year-old Glenwood man faced Penrith Local Court on Friday when he pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying an indictable amount of a prohibited drug.
Flora, his mate Devakumar, and Sangarathasan had formed two businesses – a digital marketing agency and real estate buyers’ agency – but that soon became a side hustle when they got caught up with the drugs.
Agreed facts state Sangarathasan was also a primary member of the target darknet vendor.
“He received orders, prepared prohibited drugs and packaged prohibited drugs as well as placing the prohibited drugs into parcel post poxes in Toongabbie and Seven Hills,’’ facts stated.
Police intercepted phone conversations including one in which Flora described Devakumar, who has not yet entered pleas, as “one of the smartest” men.
In November 2023, Flora mailed an express post package at Powers Rd Seven Hills that contained three boxes purporting to be pepper chicken masala curry concealing 13.82g of meth, which allegedly bore Devakumar’s fingerprints.
A day before the trio was arrested, they drove to Magowar Rd, Girraween, where investigators saw Flora place a satchel in the postal box.
Police tracked it down and found it contained three boxes purporting to be curry including a “fish masala” box laden with 27.28g of meth.
Detectives under Strike Force Cyans arrested the men at Bella Vista on April 4 last year when they swarmed them as they sat inside a gold BMW.
At Riverstone Police Station, Flora told police he had about $50 in cryptocurrency and indicated he was “uneducated on it”.
Flora alleged Devakumar and Sangarathasan were “big in crypto” and could afford items such as Rolexes without having jobs.
Flora received no financial reward for the crime, the fact sheets stated.
He will next face court on August 13.
A charge of participating in a criminal group and two counts of taking part in the supply of a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug were withdrawn.
Wearing prison greens, Sangarathasan, 28, also pleaded guilty via video link from Long Bay Hospital correctional facility on Friday morning, when the court heard he admitted to supplying more than 470g of meth at Toongabbie between August 2023 and April last year.
He pleaded guilty to supplying a prohibited drug greater than an indictable amount and supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.
He will ask for the third charge of drug supply to be taken into account when he is sentenced next month. Fifteen other charges were withdrawn.
Devakumar, 26, who was granted bail in August, is due before court on July 18.
The Bella Vista man was charged with 11 counts of drug supply including a large commercial quantity of illicit substances.
A charge of knowingly/recklessly directing a criminal group assisting crime has been withdrawn.
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