Pizza chef Salvatore “Sam” Formica admits role in doomed $800m coke-haul plot

A Melbourne man has pleaded guilty to plotting to fly 500kg of cocaine into Australia in a massive smuggling operation linked to the Calabrian mafia.

A Melbourne pizza chef has pleaded guilty to plotting to fly 500kg of cocaine into Australia on a “black flight”.

Salvatore “Sam” Formica, a La Porchetta pizza maker in Melbourne’s north, has admitted his role in the audacious plot to fly the half tonne of the drug, valued at $800m, below radar detection across the Coral Sea and into northern Australia in July 2020.

Formica, 38, and labourer Aiden Anis Khodr, both pleaded guilty to the massive smuggling operation linked to the Calabrian mafia.

They are among nine men charged over the doomed “black flight” which saw an unlicensed pilot crash his un-airworthy Cessna on take off in Papua New Guinea due to the weight of the drugs stacked in the fuselage.

Police say Formica is an “active member of a transnational organised criminal syndicate alleged to be the ’Ndrangheta”, also known as the Calabrian mafia.

The Calabrian mafia controls the world’s cocaine supply.

The scene of the plane crash at Papa Lea Lea, about 30km northwest of Port Moresby. Picture: Supplied

The cocaine was allegedly shipped from Colombia to PNG before the failed bid to smuggle the drugs into Australia.

In communications discovered on an encrypted phone, Formica went by the call sign “Captain Morgan” – a rum label – while Iraqi-born Khodher went by the handle “Glenfiddich” – a Scotch whisky label.

The rogue pilot who crashed the plane, David John Cutmore, dubbed himself “Top Gun”.

Following the crash, members of the PNG syndicate hastily unloaded the drugs and hid them in mangroves in a nearby village which were found by local police.

The syndicate’s plan was for Cutmore to take off from a makeshift runway near the PNG capital of Port Moresby and enter Australian airspace at just 3000 feet before landing at Mareeba, in Far North Queensland, on July 26, 2020.

Flights intentionally flown under the radar are known as “black flights”.

Australian Federal Police arrest a man over the alleged cocaine smuggling operation. Picture: AFP

Cutmore, who has previously been convicted for bird smuggling, told police he was promised $2m for three “black flights”, having already received $500,000 for a previous import in 2018.

The “Top Gun” pilot even quipped about Tom Cruise movie Made in America, in which the Hollywood star played a drug smuggling pilot who flew cocaine into Florida, saying he would “do a Tom Cruise, covered in powder, land in the street” on his return flight from PNG to Queensland.

Cutmore handed himself in at the Australian High Commission days after the doomed flight and was jailed for 18 years.

The cocaine was destroyed by the AFP last year.

Formica allegedly was involved in a 2018 mission to smuggle 300kg of cocaine into Queensland by air in August 2018.

The drugs, allegedly moved to Melbourne, were never located.

Salvatore “Sam” Formica allegedly depositing cash into an account to maintain a smuggling plane. Picture: Courier Mail online

Formica was captured on CCTV cameras at bank branches in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne including Moonee Ponds Flemington and Seddon depositing cash Australian Federal Police alleged was used to buy the light plane and the PNG associates.

Melbourne funeral parlour owner Giovanni Arico, 72, who part owns Tripodi funerals, put up part of a $1m surety for Formica to be granted bail. It was later revoked.

Mr Arico is Formica’s father-in-law.

In secretly recorded phone calls, Mr Arico was dubbed “the main man” by smugglers involved in a cocaine shipment.

Formica is believed to be a silent partner in a La Porchetta restaurant in Taylors Lakes that police suspect was firebombed in April 2024.

Khodr and Formica are both set for plea hearings at the County Court in December.

Originally published as Pizza chef Salvatore “Sam” Formica admits role in doomed $800m coke-haul plot