Damion Flower met with Eddie Hayson moments before cocaine ring arrest: police

Sydney’s biggest punter, former brothel king Eddie Hayson, has sensationally been named in court documents relating to the cocaine ring of disgraced racing figure Damion Flower.

Sydney’s biggest punter, former brothel king Eddie Hayson, has sensationally been named in court documents relating to the cocaine ring of disgraced racing figure Damion Flower.

Hayson, the former owner of Stiletto brothel, was captured on CCTV cameras and police surveillance meeting with Flower in Sydney in the hour before or after two of the fallen multi-millionaire’s drug importations in 2019.

Flower, 49, is facing a maximum of life in jail when he is sentenced on Friday for masterminding the smuggling of massive amounts of cocaine into Australia on QF64 from South Africa with the help of crooked Qantas baggage handlers including his mate John Mafiti, 51.

Flower was arrested in May 2019 moments after he was seen getting out of his vehicle with Hayson and walking along a street in Moorebank, where Flower then lived, between 4.25pm and 4.40pm.

Damion Flower will be sentenced on Friday.

At 3.33pm that day, Mafiti had picked up a duffel bag containing 24 one-kilogram blocks of cocaine and carried it out of Sydney International Airport, according to the agreed statement of facts.

When Flower was arrested later that day, in his car, police found a Bank of Australia visa card in Hayson’s name inside a black duffel bag which also contained a prescription in Hayson’s name and a set of house keys to Hayson’s Manly apartment.

The details can be revealed as the District Court has released the police facts which have been agreed to by Flower and signed by his lawyers. There is no suggestion Hayson was involved in the drug smuggling.

“No charges have been laid,” according to the statement of facts.

The facts state that on another occasion in 2019, Flower and Hayson met between 3.35pm and 4.06pm at Cahill Park “in the immediate vicinity of Sydney Airport”.

Mafiti had been seen leaving the airport at 4.10pm carrying a black duffel bag from QF64. After Hayson and Flower “walked towards Flower’s vehicle”, Flower was seen to drive to the airport and pick up the duffel bag from Mafiti.

Eddie Hayson. Picture Craig Greenhill

Hayson, 53, is also “suspected” by police of using one of the trio of mobile phones bought in the same batch as two used by Flower and Mafiti.

The court documents state that police searched Hayson’s apartment on March 25, 2020.

Flower has pleaded guilty to importing at least 228kg of cocaine into Australia on 12 occasions between June 19, 2016, and May 22, 2019, and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

The prosecution has alleged that Flower funnelled some of the drug proceeds into his horse racing empire which included shares in dozens of top racehorses, the prestigious Platinum Park horse stable at Clarendon, other properties in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, cars and a speedboat.

An analysis of his finances in 2019 showed income of an unknown source of up to $6.18 million. The facts stated that 48kg of cocaine was worth up to $10 million at the time.

Mafiti, who met Flower in 2000 when they both worked as baggage handlers, has pleaded guilty to his role in the drug smuggling gang and is also due to be sentenced on Friday.

The turf king had been on the police radar for about 15 years, but his smuggling plot finally came unstuck on June 29, 2016, when Australian Border Force officers seized an unattended blue Nike brand sports bag that had arrived on QF64. Inside was 24kg of cocaine.