Alleged cannabis smuggling ring used uncrackable ‘cypher phones’, codenames, court hears

TWO alleged members of a drug syndicate prosecutors say was responsible for importing more than 1.5 tonnes of cannabis into the NT communicated on uncrackable ‘cypher phones’ to evade detection by authorities, a court has heard.

Two alleged members of a drug syndicate prosecutors say was responsible for importing more than 1.5 tonnes of cannabis into the NT communicated on uncrackable ‘cypher phones’ to evade detection by authorities, Darwin Local Court has heard

• Alleged cannabis ‘kingpin’ a legitimate Darwin businessman, lawyers say
• Alleged multimillion-dollar drug syndicate member in bail bid

TWO alleged members of a drug syndicate prosecutors say was responsible for importing more than 1.5 tonnes of cannabis into the NT communicated on uncrackable “cypher phones” to evade detection by authorities, a court has heard.

The syndicate’s alleged kingpin, Peter Wellman James, 42, and his alleged lieutenant Jeremy James Ford, 43, were each denied bail in the Darwin Local Court on Wednesday after police broke up the operation in September.

Prosecutor Damien Jones told the court James and Ford were both allegedly involved in masterminding one of the biggest drug trafficking operations in Territory history after police seized $1.5m in cash “destined to purchase about 272kg of cannabis”.

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Mr Jones said James and Ford were both found in possession of the $6000 encrypted phones which were “extremely hard to crack” and allowed users to remotely delete messages.

“That's the way that we say the hierarchy of this syndicate were operating, they were using these cypher phones with codenames,” he said.

“For example, we will allege that Mr Ford is known as ‘Stealthy’ and he is communicating with a person by the name of ‘Hippie’ — we say that is Mr James.”

Mr Jones said police found more than $230,000 in cash in a raid on Mr Ford’s home as well as “cocaine in the medicine cabinet” and text messages recovered from the phones before they were locked down implicated him in the packaging of the $1.5m.

He said footage recovered from James’s own security cameras captured him sitting by the pool counting the money, which he then drove to a freight depot to be trucked south.

“If the key players in this were released on bail there clearly could be a situation where witnesses are contacted,” he said.

“Let’s make no mistake, the amounts of money involved and the quantity of drugs, this jurisdiction hasn’t seen before so we say even at this point it’s an extremely strong Crown case and it’s only going to get stronger.”

Ford’s lawyer, Matt Hubber, said there was no evidence his client was involved in the supply of the alleged 1.6 tonnes of cannabis and there was “no way in this world that he’ll be pleading guilty to that”.

“(The police precis contains) wild unsubstantiated estimates of the amounts of cannabis and the amount of money — it all sounds very fantastic at this point and it will not be proven,” he said.

James’s lawyer, Peter Maley said the case against the men was “speculative as to the existence of this syndicate”.

“The thrust of the surveillance devices and warrants weren’t secured until well after the police say there was this criminal syndicate with an agreement to participate in this broad-ranging alleged enterprise,” he said.

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Both defence lawyers indicated the men would be contesting the charges at trial in the Supreme Court but Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris ruled the cases against them were strong and the risk of compromising the ongoing investigation could not be overcome.

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