How a drug syndicate allegedly used a legitimate business to smuggle $50m of cocaine

Bikie boss Mark Buddle’s alleged drug syndicate secretly used a legitimate multinational company as a front to smuggle $50 million worth of cocaine into Australia, a court has been told.

Bikie boss Mark Buddle’s alleged drug syndicate secretly used a legitimate air filtration company as a front to smuggle $50 million worth of cocaine into Australia, a court has been told.

The company, Clear Edge — a multinational operation that sells air purification devices and services from its outpost in Melbourne — had no idea its name and details were used to smuggle 160kg of the drug into Australia from Hong Kong in May 2021.

Documents tendered in the NSW Supreme Court this week revealed police claim Buddle, the one-time international commander of the Comanchero syndicate, used Clear Edge’s business details in the hope that the company’s long and unblemished history would result in Australian border authorities not examining the cocaine shipment.

Justice Des Fagan granted The Sunday Telegraph access to a set of police documents from a bail application in the case against another man charged in NSW that said the process was known as “piggybacking” in police and ­criminal circles.

Justice Fagan told the court: “It was an elaborate and, evidently, well-funded and highly organised enterprise, involving extensive planning.”

Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

This included Buddle’s syndicate allegedly using fake email addresses purporting to belong to Clear Edge, phones registered with fake names, and landlines that didn’t exist as they set up their Trojan horse, the court was told.

Prosecutors also alleged the plan involved a corrupt freight forwarder, and a process where the drug shipment was marked with invisible ink, visible only under UV light, so the alleged syndicate members could see if it had been tampered with.

The 160kg of cocaine that was intercepted by police. Picture: Australian Federal Police

The syndicate also allegedly sent three dummy shipments, containing 120kg weight plates instead of cocaine, to Melbourne from Hong Kong between April and May 2021 as a test run to see if they attracted police attention.

When those shipments were successfully delivered, the shipment with 160kg of cocaine hidden in air purifiers was sent. It landed in Melbourne on May 31, 2021.

The alleged syndicate members were blindsided by police intercepting messages detailing the smuggling plot and replacing the cocaine with chalk before allowing it to be delivered.

This occurred because the supposedly encrypted AN0M phones the alleged syndicate members were using were part of a worldwide police sting in which police were able to read the messages.

Seven men — including Buddle — have been charged over the smuggling operation.

The details emerged in court on Tuesday when one of those men, Edward Lee, who was accused of being a Leichhardt-based conduit for the operation, was refused bail.

The police documents claim that instead of the delivery address being Clear Edge’s Dingley Village headquarters, the air purifiers were sent to a Keilor Park warehouse that Buddle’s alleged minions had rented on a short-term lease, the court was told.

The shipping document listed the recipient as “Scott Harvey” along with a mobile phone number, the court was told.

Police allege Buddle was based overseas but was directing the syndicate’s Australian-based members using an AN0M phone.

Buddle, who fled Australia in 2016, was deported from Turkey to Australia last month and was charged with importing a commercial quantity of cocaine into Australia.

Lee, who allegedly used the AN0M handle “House of Cards” was arrested on June 8 at his Leichhardt home. Five other alleged members of the syndicate were arrested in Victoria between June 4-6.

Lee’s barrister Avni Djemal told the court the prosecution accused his client of being “a conduit” in the alleged operation and not a boss or owner of the drugs.

There was also a senior member of the alleged syndicate based in Turkey who was using the AN0M handles “Suit Up” and “Hardly Four”.

The court was told the Turkey based syndicate member “had overall control”.

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