Coke pilot ‘boasted of drug run’

An Australian pilot accused of crashing a plane carrying more than 600kg of cocaine allegedly chatted to a colleague about an earlier importation of the drug.

An Australian pilot accused of crashing a plane carrying more than 600kg of cocaine allegedly made another major mistake, chatting to a colleague about an earlier importation of the drug while police were listening in.

David Cutmore, a former bird smuggler with an accident-prone past, is in custody in Papua New Guinea after allegedly crashing the overloaded Cessna on takeoff at a remote airstrip north of Port Moresby in July.

Police allege he was working with a crime syndicate that had previously imported 300kg of cocaine into Australia on a “black flight” from PNG in Aug­ust 2018.

Supreme Court of Victoria documents lodged by a co-­accused, Pierino Forni, say police had conceded the drugs from the earlier importation had never been found. 

“No contemporaneous surveillance material, telephone intercepts or listening device material evidencing any such importation existed and the case for the importation was pieced together from later intercept material and phone records amongst other evidence,” the documents state.

“No formal statements by any person as to the importation existed and the case was wholly reliant on statements made by the alleged pilot, Mr David Cutmore … to a colleague captured on a ­listening device.”

Mr Forni, 61, and a co-­accused, Salvatore Formica, 33, are seeking bail in the Supreme Court. Their lawyers have characterised the case against the men as weak.

Judge Elizabeth Hollingworth said there was a large amount of material to consider and reserved her decision.