Geraldton drug bust: How syndicate’s billion-dollar meth plot unravelled and led to eight convictions

“They just got grabbed.” With that hastily written text message, Adelaide businessman Patrick Bouhamdan signalled to those above him that he — and they — were in serious trouble. Bouhamdan was sitting on a Geraldton jetty, in a hired Toyota Corolla, watching armed police storm onto a boat he had just been on for three days. That boat, the Valkoista, had sailed into the dark ocean and back again — returning to Western Australia with cargo worth up to a billion dollars. 1.2 tonnes of high-purity meth, packed into dozens of rice sacks, destined for the streets of Australia. Now Bouhamdan, the man he was texting Jabour Lahood, and the men he was watching being cuffed at gunpoint — were all destined for jail. Which is where eight of them will remain for decades, having all been convicted of one of the biggest drug smuggling enterprises in Australian history. On Monday, almost six years on from those dawn raids on board the 55ft cruiser, the vast prosecution — one of the longest-running and most intense drug cases in WA legal history — came to an end, when Bouhamdan was found guilty. The 53 year-old had denied being one of the ringleaders of the international syndicate which brought in the drugs. But a jury rejected his claims, and found he was involved in the plot, the organisation and the import itself in December 2017. The conviction means it can also be revealed that four other men — Khalid Elia Kaena, Peter Harb, Serupepeli Anthony Rasuabale, and Lahood — were also convicted after a previous trial which ended in November last year. A fifth man, Christopher Cafcakis, was acquitted by the same jury. A sixth, Stephen Baxter, had his charges dropped. And before the trials even began, three others — Josh Smith, Sean Dolman and Waseem Hermiz — admitted their roles in what was at the time the largest drug seizure in Australian history. Kaena, Hermiz and Rasaubale became the poster boys for the bust, pictured sitting on the wharf in handcuffs with armed police towering over them. Mr Smith was the skipper of the Valkoista, the $300,000 boat used to sail into the Indian Ocean, meet an Asian mothership, and then bring back the precious cargo. Dolman was another ringleader, who attended meetings in Perth and interstate, and was in constant communication with other syndicate members. His WhatsApp handle was “Boss”. And Hermiz was one of the ground crew, tasked to bring a van to the jetty, unload the drugs and drive them back east. All three of those men would eventually give their accounts to the Australian Federal Police. And Mr Smith in particular became a key cog in the prosecutions against all his former criminal colleagues. His family’s business was oysters, harvested from the Hawkesbury River in NSW. But after disaster struck, and bankruptcy followed, Smith was unemployed — scraping a living by chefing, and labouring, and buying and selling cars. Through a car connection, he was invited to a meeting at a driving range. There he was introduced to a man referred to only as “J”. Bit by bit, he moved from the fringes to the fulcrum of other meetings. And he was being asked to do a job on the water “out west”. A job involving a big boat, big enough to carry hundreds of kilograms of cargo. Mr Smith’s astonishing account revealed on one hand a multi-layered organisation behind the influx of meth from Asia into the Australian drug market. On the other was childish infighting, allegations of theft and backstabbing, frustration, delays and bungles — all captured by the AFP. That operation — codenamed Ligar — began after the gang had actually succeeded in bringing in a massive drugs stash in July 2017, on the same boat with much of the same crew. Mr Smith told how he had skippered that first trip. He said Bouhamdan was his crewmate and instructor. Lahood appeared to be on another level, attending meetings in Perth, Sydney and overseas — but steering clear when the actual drugs were coming onshore. One of those meetings was in September 2017, when undercover agents sat and watched in the foyer of Crown Towers as Lahood and Bouhamdan had a meeting they thought was hush-hush. But photos and videos captured them walking and talking, meeting and eating. And when agents later raided a room on the sixth floor, they found a couple of very interesting scraps of information. On the back of an express checkout form was a scribbled, hand-drawn map of Australia. And the other was a Qantas bag tag with Lahood’s name on it. In the months before and after, AFP listening devices had captured the gang talking and arguing about the seemingly successful July operation — with allegations a bag of drugs had gone missing. Mr Smith denied he was behind the theft. Bouhamdan and others were sceptical. They eventually put their differences behind them — after threats were made towards the skipper — to embark on another trip from Geraldton in late 2017. That drugs mission was aborted once, a big bust on the other side of the country in Newcastle seemingly spooking the Asian syndicate. But on December 18, 2017, the trip was back on. Smith was again in the wheelhouse, Mr Cafcakis along for the ride, and Bouhamdan apparently in charge. In WhatsApp messages, Bouhamdan said his boss was Sydney-based Lahood. And it was he who he stayed in touch with via satellite phone during the arduous sea journey which went anything but smoothly. Messages to the other syndicate members were less convivial. In July, as he waited for the van to arrive to collect the drugs Bouhamdan messaged: ““We are supposed to be experts — it’s embarrassing. “We are like fish in a barrel — get us the f..k out of here”. Talking to Mr Smith about Geraldton, Bouhamdan messaged: “Just checking you realise you are on an AFP controlled dock — just to add some spice.” And on December 14, days before the ship was about to set sail, Bouhamdan was messaging his mate Mr Cafcakis. “This goes to plan, you join the payroll,” he wrote. “I do hope you have matured. This is not a game. Mistakes cost lives.” During his trial, Mr Cafcakis gave a bizarre account of how he was approached by his Adelaide associates — including Bouhamdan — despite being singularly unqualified for a perilous trip on the high seas. “Patrick told me that he had invested in a tour where they brought in an artist called Milo Yiannopoulos,” Mr Cafcakis said. “He was going to … start his own touring business that he wanted me involved with, and the first artist they were going to bring was Russell Brand. “That’s an area of work that I had been involved in and was interested in. “I did like Kanye West in Adelaide. I helped promote a festival called Rock the Block which had multiple artists like Pink and Shaggy and things like that. I helped with the Coolio tour.” Mr Cafcakis was used to mixing with the rich and famous, pictured with Hollywood elite Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg at a 2012 Elton John AIDS fundraiser. But this trip was much more low-key. “The whole purpose of the (Perth) trip, was to go fishing and meet some people,” he said. “We never ended up going fishing.” What they did do was go looking for a large Asian ship — with the traditionally lucky figure 8s on the side — for a rendezvous. After their departure — all captured on dockside CCTV — the voyage was treacherous, with waves smashing the Valkoista. At one point, Mr Smith said that the crew should “think of it as 50 bucks a wave”. All Mr Cafcakis said he could think about was the walls of the cabin closing in on him. “I was very, very claustrophobic. I thought if the boat tipped, we’d be dead. I said to Smith that: ‘I have to get out’”, he said “I convinced him to let me try to get out and then I hopped out the window. He held me. And I nearly flew off the boat — but I hung on.” And he held on long enough to meet with the Asian mothership, with Bouhamdan handing over a torn Hong Kong banknote as a sign they were the right contacts. The exact moment of that meet-up was caught by the on-board listening devices that were still running, courtesy of the AFP. Recordings played to the jury captured confused voices, before one shouts “Money, money”. Mr Smith told a jury that was the captain of the Asian mothership, asking for the sign to start unloading the drugs. That sign, said Mr Smith, was half a $10 Hong Kong banknote. The captain had one half — and Mr Smith told the jury that his shipmate Mr Bouhamdan had the other. “The Asian captain, his stress levels relaxed – he had a much more passive face,” Mr Smith said. Then, large packages began being thrown onto the deck of the Valkoista. This moment Mr Cafcakis said was when he realised the intention wasn’t to catch a few snapper. “Someone said something about a machine gun,” he said. “As I ... looked at the back I just saw bags landing on the boat. “There was someone, an Asian guy, throwing bags. He was looking at me, I was looking at him. I kind of froze. He froze as well just looking at me and until the boats parted we were just staring at each other until he went off into the distance. “I saw Bouhamdan and ... the first thing he said to me was: ‘Don’t worry. It’s not drugs’.” But it was. Hundreds of kilos of top-line meth were thrown down, and then sailed back, with the AFP listening and watching all the while. “I was asking Mr Bouhamdan what it was: ‘Please tell me what it is. Tell me what it is’,” Mr Cafcakis said. “He said to stop asking questions, he’s not answering. He started laughing at me and said: ‘Well, now I’m telling you I’ve got a job for you’. “I lost my shit. I went to go outside and Smith stopped me. He said: “Recover or be’ ... and he made a gesture.” That gesture was a thumb, being drawn across the front of his neck. “Bouhamdan said: ‘Stop freaking out. Stop asking questions. Stop asking Smith questions’,” Mr Cafcakis said. “He said he tells Dolman everything, and Dolman wanted me pushed off the boat. He said not to do anything stupid when we got back because people were watching us. “And if I was to do anything stupid, then I would be turned into fish food — all of us could be turned into fish food.” After many more hours — some of them spent sleeping on those dozens of sacks — the Valkoista sailed back within sight of land in the early hours of December 21. Some lights twinkled. But there was also a cover of darkness. Mr Cafcakis said he was petrified. Bouhamdan said he was hungry. “Patrick bought me a Whopper Junior,” Mr Cafcakis said. “I was petrified. Scared. I was having a panic attack. “I saw a guy in the dark — so I didn’t know what kind of uniform it was — but it looked like an Army-type uniform in the shadows staring at me. And I was staring at him ... making sure what I saw was real. “There was a guy with a machine gun.” There were plenty of them in fact. Part of the Tactical Response Group waiting for the word to swoop. At 3.47am, as Bouhamdan sat in his car, he saw that swoop — given time enough to text: “They just got grabbed” to a sleepless Lahood. The Hungry Jack’s he had just eaten was Bouhamdan’s last meal as a free man. He has been in jail ever since, as has Lahood and the rest of his crew. A jury believed Mr Cafcakis knew nothing of the drugs plot until he was on the boat and he is now back in Adelaide. But the rest are facing a term of life in prison when they are sentenced in April by Justice Michael Corboy. Following the convictions, AFP Assistant Commissioner Pryce Scanlan hailed the operation that was able to take down a syndicate of such scale and sophistication. “Methamphetamine continues to ravage our communities and remains the drug of most concern to Australian law enforcement. This amount of meth could have been sold as at least 12 million street-level deals,” he said. “However, because tests showed this meth was of such high purity …. it is feasible that distributors would have diluted it with other substances to create at least double that amount of individual hits. “We cannot overstate the community harm this would have caused if it had not been intercepted. “The AFP will not rest in our efforts both domestically and offshore to detect, disrupt and deter organised crime, who harm the Australian community through this vile trade.”