Cocaine dealers Melbourne: Jackie Chan, Kristiana Karakostas
From the wannabe music producer busted in a Box Hill hotel, to the real estate agent peddling coke on Craigslist, here are the suburban cocaine kings and queens of Melbourne.
Police & Courts
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Cocaine use across Australia is at its highest level in two decades and is fuelling a rise in cocaine trafficking and dealing offences.
From the wannabe music producer busted in a Box Hill hotel, to the real estate agent peddling coke on Craigslist, here are the suburban cocaine kings and queens of Melbourne.
Dr WARREN SIPSER
The prominent Melbourne chiropractor sent his elderly mum to collect a $90 million haul of liquid cocaine in wine bottles, putting her at “greatest risk”.
Dr Warren Sipser, 44, has pleaded guilty to trying to import more than 120kg of cocaine and of possession of a controlled drug after he was caught up in a 2018 police sting.
A plea hearing at the County Court was told Sipser inquired about 600 bottles of South African Nederburg wine on eBay with the username “drwazzie” in June of that year.
He later paid $3100 AUD for another consignment of the same wine with a different username, set for delivery from South Africa to “Warren” at Hecho en Mexico restaurant in Bay St, Brighton.
But the delivery, with documents dated eight days before he agreed to buy the wine, was picked up by the cops instead and replaced with replica bottles.
The court was told Sipser distanced himself “completely” from the delivery of the 600 wine bottles, 343 of which contained pure liquid cocaine, by calling his mum and saying he “wouldn’t make it in time”.
BRONSON INTERLANDI, ANTHONY BELFIORE, MATAR DVIR-OVADIA
A Hawthorn East plumber was the brains behind a Melbourne-wide cocaine delivery racket, a court has heard.
Bronson Interlandi, 34, pleaded guilty in the County Court in February to trafficking cocaine, drug possession and knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime.
Interlandi co-ordinated the drug racket between November 2019 and June 2020, the court was told.
The court heard Interlandi sold cocaine after his healthy snack machine company ‘Aussie Lean Machine’ collapsed.
Details on how Interlandi operated the racket were outlined in a prosecution summary tendered to the court.
Interlandi supplied cocaine to primary operatives Anthony Belfiore and Matar Dvir-Ovadia.
Belfiore, under the alias ‘Chris’, and Dvir-Ovadia, under the alias ‘Andy’, used phones issued by Interlandi to receive orders via SMS, calls and encrypted messaging application ‘Signal’.
JACKIE CHAN
The wannabe music producer was busted with a stack of cocaine, MDMA and cash at his Box Hill high-rise hotel room.
Jackie Chan, 28, was sentenced at the County Court on March 26, 2020 to a minimum three years and eight months’ jail after pleading guilty to drug trafficking.
Chan was arrested after police raided his The Chen Hotel room early on April 11 2019.
Investigators seized multiple zip-lock bags which contained 429gm of cocaine and 383gm of MDMA from his room, and in “hidden compartments” inside his car.
Police also seized $158,000 cash – including a $1000 Crown Casino betting chip – and a Louis Vuitton bag worth almost $2000.
A bottle of clonazepam, kitchen scales and three mobile phones were also seized.
Chan was taken to Box Hill police station where he gave a “mainly no comment” interview.
KRISTIANA KARAKOSTAS
The real estate agent caught peddling cocaine via Craigslist with her reality TV schoolfriend avoided jail time.
Kristiana Karakostas, 27, was sentenced in the County Court in June 2020 to a three-year community correction order after pleading guilty to trafficking cocaine.
Karakostas and former The Bachelor contestant Georgia Tripos were busted in March 2017 following a month-long covert police operation.
Police launched their sting after investigators discovered a coded ad for cocaine on online classifieds site Craigslist in February 2017.
Karakostas sold an undercover cop a bag of cocaine for $350 at a carpark behind a Mount Waverley Shell service station on February 22.
Karakostas was arrested at Woodards Mount Waverley office on March 15.
She was caught with more than six grams of cocaine – including half-a-gram of cocaine in her purse – drug paraphernalia, tick notes and more than $3000 cash.
PATRICK SUCCAR
A carpenter exposed as a drug kingpin after police found a stack of cocaine, ecstasy, weapons and cash at his Reservoir home has been jailed.
Patrick Succar, 30, was sentenced in the County Court in December 2020, to a minimum three years and six months’ jail after pleading guilty to charges including two counts of trafficking a commercial quantity of drugs.
Succar’s card was marked after he attempted to post almost a half a kilo of cocaine to a location in Sydney on December 12 2018.
The package was intercepted at Tullamarine and examined by an Australian Border Force officer.
Succar, who also pleaded guilty to trafficking ecstasy, used the alias ‘James Borg’ and claimed the package contained a “present” for a customer’s nephew.
DAVID COSTA
The lawyer for a former award-winning real estate agent turned cocaine dealer has told a court his client’s life has been “totally messed up” by drugs.
David Costa, 37, was jailed for 18 months in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in February, 2021 after pleading guilty to drug offences including trafficking.
Costa, who ran Elders Real Estate in Werribee and Tarneit for 15 years, was caught out after selling thousands’ of dollars worth of cocaine to an undercover police officer.
He first sold the man $1200 worth of coke from his Altona property on April 1 last year before the officer returned for $7500 worth of coke two days later.
On April 10, Costa organised for an associate to deal more to the covert officer at a Thomastown car wash.
Police arrested Costa in a Collins St hotel room in May, where he and a co-accused housed more than $10,000 in cash, bags of drugs and a number of mobile phones.
Costa’s lawyer told the court his client had “no trouble” with authorities until the age of 35, developing substance abuse issues, anxiety and depression following a relationship breakdown.
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