Bumbling would-be cocaine kingpin Cy Morris jailed for 3kg, $1.5m Esplanade bust

A would-be cocaine dealer who had been on investigators’ radar was watched on as he filled a canoe drum with more than 3kg of cocaine and buried it at a Darwin park. Find out his sentence.

Police were watching as Cy Morris buried a plastic drum on the Darwin Esplanade before coming back and filling it with drugs and money. Picture: NT Police

A bumbling would-be cocaine kingpin who buried $1.5m worth of the drug on the Darwin Esplanade while police watched his every move has been jailed for seven years and eight months.

Cy Robert John Morris sobbed and wiped away tears as Justice Sonia Brownhill handed down her sentence in the Supreme Court on Friday after the 42-year-old pleaded guilty to supplying a commercial quantity of cocaine and possessing the proceeds of crime.

The court heard Morris had driven from his home in Mullumbimby in NSW with his pregnant wife and young child before arriving in Darwin in May last year, purchasing a large canoe drum and burying it on the Esplanade.

Morris had been on local investigators’ radar since crossing the border and police watched on as he visited a number of locations around Darwin before returning to the drum and filling it with more than 3kg of cocaine and $100,000 in cash.

Justice Brownhill noted that Morris had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which made him “prone to engage in criminal acts that are often committed during the manic phases of such disorder” and had significant drug and gambling debts.

She said Morris had also entered early guilty pleas but they were “something of a recognition of the inevitable” given the strength of the case against him.

The court heard the more than 3kg of cocaine represented ‘one of the largest, if not the largest, amount of cocaine ever seized in the NT’. Picture: NT Police

But Justice Brownhill found while it had been argued that Morris had not made a profit and was trying to sell the drugs to repay debts to his international suppliers, “repayment of a debt is not nothing”.

“Further, the logical and proper inference is that debt to the drug syndicate was incurred by your purchase of the drugs in the first place,” she said.

Justice Brownhill also rejected a submission that Morris had been travelling with his family because he was concerned for their safety, noting there was “no evidence that they were at risk of harm from the drug syndicate or anyone else” and he may have simply wanted to spend time with them.

“Alternatively, as the Crown submits, taking your family with you could have been for the purpose of making your activities less suspicious and detectable,” she said.

Justice Brownhill said Morris had been “personally” undertaking “a serious and significant commercial operation” which was no less serious because he was busted in its early stages.

“The only reason the drugs did not get so supplied is because you were caught,” she said.

Morris will be eligible for parole in 2027.