Alleged 850kg cocaine smuggler told court he thought shipment was tobacco
A Lithuanian man on trial in Perth over an alleged 850kg cocaine import tells the court he thought he was smuggling tobacco, as five defendants deny charges in one of Australia’s biggest drug cases.
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A young Lithuanian man accused of helping import almost a tonne of cocaine into Western Australia has told a jury he believed he was part of a tobacco trafficking operation, not a drug smuggling ring, as opening arguments began in a high-profile trial that could see the five defendants face life imprisonment.
The case centres on one of Australia’s largest ever cocaine seizures, with navy divers discovering 849.5kg of the drug in 29 packages hidden in the ballast tanks of a cargo ship off the WA coast in May 2023, with prosecutors estimating the street value at about $500 million.
Germanas Joneliunas, 24, Ashley William Vlotman, 40, Meagan Elizabeth Rees, 35, Milan Begovic, 46 and Terrence William Baker, 29 have all pleaded not guilty to importing a commercial quantity of a border‑controlled drug, with their lawyers arguing they were unaware the shipment involved cocaine.
Joneliunas’s lawyer, Simon Watters, told the WA Supreme Court on Tuesday the Lithuanian national was paid 50,000 euros (about $80,600) to travel to Australia and assist with what he understood to be a tobacco smuggling operation. “Not cocaine,” Mr Watters said during his opening remarks. “He did not know it was a border‑controlled drug he was attempting to import.”
Baker’s lawyer, Anthony Elliott, said his client was also unaware he was part of an alleged cocaine smuggling plot and believed he was on a fishing trip when he set out in a runabout boat named No Fixed Address to retrieve packages from the sea. “He didn’t think he was going out to collect huge quantities of cocaine,” Mr Elliott said in his opening remarks.
The illicit drugs had never actually been thrown overboard from the ship, which had sailed to Australia from Argentina, and Mr Elliott said Baker’s actions showed he did not believe he was involved in a major drug operation. When the boat ran into trouble offshore from Perth in rough seas west of Rottnest Island, Baker called his mother using a mobile phone and asked her to call sea rescue. “Someone who knows about 800kg or more of cocaine isn’t going to ask the authorities to come and save them,” Mr Elliott said.
Baker’s pink iPhone was described to the jury as the “Rosetta Stone” of the case due to the large number of messages on it, which prosecutors say relate to the alleged smuggling operation.
Rees’s lawyer, Helen Prince, told the court her client let a man not on trial use her phone and take control of her Signal account, but said she did not know he was attempting to import drugs. Ms Prince said Rees was working on key days during the operation and did not have access to her Signal account at the time. “She had no idea what was going on when she left to go to work,” Ms Prince said. The Signal account was allegedly used to coordinate elements of the smuggling operation.
Begovic’s lawyer, Paul Bevilacqua, told the jury on Monday his client, the ship’s skipper, had no idea there were drugs on his vessel and said other crew members working different shifts could have been responsible for coordinating any drop‑off.
Prosecutors allege all five played a role in the attempted importation of the cocaine from South America, including the captain of the bulk carrier the drugs were found on, but each has denied the charges as the trial continues in the WA Supreme Court.
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