What police found at convicted drug dealer’s penthouse after raid
A convicted drug dealer charged with commercial drug supply and firearms offences had cocaine on a plate in his bathroom and tens of thousands of dollars cash in his deckchairs.
St George Shire Standard
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A convicted drug dealer had lines of cocaine on a plate in the bathroom, $30,000 cash hidden in his deckchairs and steel bars fortifying his penthouse when officers raided his home after a massive drug and firearm bust in Sydney’s south.
Maroun Assaf, 37, was charged two weeks after his employee Joseph Farah, 27, was allegedly caught on CCTV rifling through a fake airconditioning unit concealing $2 million of cocaine and several illegal firearms on the roof above his Rockdale penthouse.
Officers attached to Strike Force Raptor seized 7.7kg of cocaine and seven firearms including an assault rifle from a disconnected airconditioning unit on the roof, which can only be accessed by ladder from the two penthouse apartments Assaf uses as his home and his office.
Officers also seized four additional firearms, ammunition, bulletproof vests, 1kg of cocaine and 1kg of methylamphetamine from the unit block’s basement, and 25L of GBL at a Botany warehouse.
Assaf is now charged with 25 offences including two counts of large commercial prohibited drug supply, one count of commercial prohibited drug supply, and illegal firearm possession.
At Sutherland Local Court the police prosecutor said Assaf was allegedly the mastermind behind the drug operation.
“We allege he controls the illegal activities, and Joseph Farah is involved,” she said.
However, Assaf’s solicitor argued Assaf was one of several people accessing both the common office area in Rockdale and the Botany warehouse, and could not be tied exclusively to the seized drugs and firearms.
The court heard he had not been charged in relation to a plate lined with cocaine found in his bathroom or approximately $30,000 cash, some of which was hidden beneath the cushions of a chair on his balcony.
Magistrate Peter Bugden noted that Assaf, who now runs a strata management company, had previously been jailed for prohibited drug supply in 2014.
“In 2011, there was a three-year sentence for dealing with the proceeds of crime, three years and nine months for supplying prohibited drugs,” Mr Bugden read from the alleged police facts.
Mr Bugden refused Assaf’s bail application and the Rockdale man will return to Sutherland Local Court in November.
Police also say the discovery of identical scraps of green microfibre cloth – used at times to wrap firearms – at Assaf’s home, office and the Botany warehouse would link him to the crime.
“The green cloth links all these areas together,” the police prosecutor said.
“There is the same cloth used to wrap firearms located in each of the areas which were searched in relation to him.”
Assaf’s wife and three female friends watched on silently in court as Assaf appeared in prison greens on the audiovisual link.
One of the women wrapped her hand in rosary beads and prayed silently as she peered at the screen, before lashing out at media waiting outside court.