Accused drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch’s mother pleads with a court not to throw her out of her home

As she begged a court not to take her out of her $4 million home, the mother of accused drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch said she had no idea he was going to jump bail.

Alleged drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch, right, was extradited back to Sydney, right, after being arrested on the NSW/QLD border after skipping bail. Pictures: News Corp/Supplied

The mother of accused drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch has pleaded with a court not to throw her out of her $4 million home, saying she had no idea he was going to jump bail.

Najeeba Baluch, who put up her Bayview mansion on Sydney’s northern beaches to secure her son’s bail, wasn’t in court on Tuesday to argue her case in person. She has just got out of hospital, Downing Centre Local Court was told.

She has lodged six reasons objecting to the forfeiture order being made by the Commonwealth to seize her five-bedroom home with Pittwater views in what is being seen as a test case.

It is the first property in at least six years that has been seized under bail laws in NSW.

She has argued that there were “no circumstances which ought to have alerted her” that her son was planning to flee, which he did within days of being granted bail in October 2021 when he allegedly cut off his tracking ankle bracelet and sparked an international manhunt.

Pictured arriving at Bankstown Airport in Sydney on November 11, 2021, is alleged drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch. Baluch arrived via an extradition flight into a Sydney after being arrested on the NSW/QLD border after skipping bail and being on the run for 2 weeks. Baluch is alleged to have been the financier behind a 900kg shipment of cocaine into Australia that had a street value of $270m. Picture: Richard Dobson

He was caught hiding in a Mercedes that was in a shipping container on the back of a truck located on the NSW-Queensland border two weeks later and flown back to Sydney where bail was formally refused and he remains behind bars on remand pending a trial on federal charges of being a major financier to a 900kg cocaine importation from Ecuador, worth about $270m on the street.

His family are well-respected restaurateurs and there is no suggestion they knew anything about Baluch’s alleged drug dealing.

Fugitive Mostafa Baluch after being found in a Mercedes inside a truck shipping container while trying to cross into Queensland. His mother is fighting to stop the Commonwealth seizing the family home after she put it up to secure his bail. Picture: NSW Police

The case to seize the family home had already been adjourned twice and was due to be argued on Tuesday, but the court was told Ms Baluch had been in hospital and was due to be released that same day.

Magistrate Miranda Moody questioned the medical certificate handed to the court by Ms Baluch’s barrister Christopher Parkin, saying it was dated March 15, but the case was put over to November 4 after the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions did not object to the adjournment.

That will give the family at least a two-year hiatus to live at home after it was put up to secure Baluch’s bail in October 2021. Baluch had argued he was the “carer” for his elderly parents.

Court documents state that Ms Baluch has submitted it would be unjust for her home to be forfeit because she took all reasonable steps to ensure her son complied with bail and would appear at court as well as assisted police after he fled.

“(She) genuinely put her assets at risk and will suffer an unjust financial impact should the forfeiture order be confirmed in full,” she has submitted.