How Colombian ‘cocaine’ bust in Sydney shopping centre car park went bad

Sugar passed off as cocaine, a shootout in a suburban car park, an escaped suspect and red-faced cops who risked shooting at each other. How did it all go so wrong?

It had started as a take-down of Colombian cocaine suppliers in a suburban shopping centre carpark.

But the alleged dealers turned out to be a hapless hairdresser, his uni-student friend and his father selling bags of sugar bought from Woolworths.

Behind the scenes – it was even more chaotic with confusion and command failures putting police at risk of unwittingly opening fire on each other in a “blue on blue” incident.

In the mayhem, as one of the suspects fled the scene, a police officer was run over as another shot at the getaway car.

An AFP police officer was injured and another fired a shot at an escaping suspect during a police operation in the carpark of Strathfield Plaza shopping centre. Picture: Toby Zerna

But far from being part of a well-established drug cartel, as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) believed, the men were cleanskins.

A bunch of guys trying to make some fast cash selling fake drugs, with no links to any drug ring. But they were Colombian.

The three men, Jhonattan Giraldo Moreno, 30, his father Jose Moreno Gomez, 50, and William David Franco Riano, 24, were stunned after hooking a buyer prepared to pay $1 million for 15kg of “cocaine” within days.

Riano, told police in an agreed statement of facts, the plan was to contact someone who wanted to buy drugs – lie to them – and then supply sugar.

The scene in the undercover carpark of Strathfield Plaza after the alleged drug deal went wrong. Picture: Toby Zerna

They thought it was simple and not illegal.

The AFP – thinking they were on the tail of dealers linked to a “well-established Colombian drug cartel” – sent in undercover officers.

Within 11 days of making contact an undercover police agent “Tony” met and discussed buying $1 million worth of coke.

After exchanging photos of the “drugs” the deal was to go down in the undercover car park of Sydney’s Strathfield Plaza shopping centre in July 2020.

And that’s when things really went wrong.

Moreno crashed through the car park boom gates as he fled the drug sting gone wrong. Picture: Toby Zerna

As Gomez and Riano were arrested in the sting they shouted out “it’s sugar”, “it’s sugar” prompting Moreno to escape in their getaway car.

As he fled, crashing through the boom gates of the car park, he ran over one of the officers while another tried to shoot out the car’s tyres.

In the following chaos and the manhunt for Moreno, internal AFP documents obtained under Freedom of Information showed confusion reigned with some police not knowing who was doing what role and their communications hardware and systems suffered “inherent issues”.

AFP admit there were multiple issues with their operation. Picture: Toby Zerna

A “Protected” debrief report found members of the tactical team and the investigative teams didn’t have “visibility” of each others’ orders inviting “confusion and misinterpretation of roles and responsibilities” creating “poor Situational Awareness”.

There was “poor“ risk assessment of the situation and lack of consistency in planning and accountability documents.

Worse, because no joint briefings were held between the AFP tactical team which came from Canberra, and the investigative team there was “limited ability to Positively Identify (PID)” who was who – presenting “a risk to AFP members … and a “genuine potential for a blue-on-blue incident”.

Members of the Australian Federal Police tactical team. Picture: AAP

The debrief found the “Root Cause” of the incident was “Ambiguity surrounding a clear line of tactical Command and Control, which also resulted in vagueness or misinterpretation of roles, responsibility and ultimately capability boundaries.”

It was suggested future multi-team operations should run off the same orders … and “this will enable shared operational awareness and establish clear boundaries reporting and approval lines as well as mitigate potential ‘blue-on-blue’ situations.”

NSW Police sources also complained about lack of planning saying local police were told at the last minute about the operation and that could have also gone bad, if a member of the public had called police about the shooting – ending with a blue-on-blue between NSW Police and AFP.

Tightened protocols now require the AFP to inform the NSW State Crime Command of any operation in NSW well ahead of time.

Assistant Commissioner Fiona Drennan signed of on the professional standards investigation into the shooting incident that resulted in an officer being sanctioned. Picture: Supplied

An AFP internal investigation into the shooting, signed off by Assistant Commissioner Fiona Drennan sanctioned the AFP Senior Constable involved in the shooting.

NSW Police also investigated the shooting but found the officer hadn’t committed an offence as he was carrying out his duties.

The sanctions weren’t revealed, however FOI documents from NSW Police showed discussions about the revocation or suspension of a gun licence.

An AFP spokesman said aspects of operational and tactical planning, communications infrastructure and practices have since been reviewed and “lessons learnt”.

He said improvements in methodology and resources have also been put in place.

Moreno, was eventually arrested. The trio have pleaded guilty to supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug (imitation).

It carries the same maximum penalty of 20 years jail sentence as real drugs. They will be sentenced next month.