A Yarraville man who tried to smuggle illegal drugs worth
$14 million in a shipment of beer bottles has been jailed for 17 years.
Adrian Franze, co-owner of a Laverton North liquor importation
business and Prahran nightspot Destino Latin Bar, was charged over a
plot to import 14 kilograms of cocaine and 133 kilograms of
methamphetamine, which had been liquefied and hidden inside beer bottles
from Mexico.
The Supreme Court heard that in October 2011 authorities checked a shipment of 672 boxes of beer imported from Mexico and found traces of cocaine and meth. Listening devices were then hidden in the boxes.
Commonwealth prosecutor Daniel Gurvich said Franze, 33, had been
involved in a joint enterprise with two other men, Erol Ramazanoglu and
Anthony Sitar, to take possession of the drugs.
Sitar disappeared after being charged over the plot. He went on
the run after police raided Destino Latin Bar, of which he was also
co-owner. Last year, Interpol placed Sitar on its high-priority
watchlist for international fugitives.
During his trial, Franze denied knowing there were drugs in the beer bottles until well after they had been imported.
He said Sitar had gambling debts, and that he only helped him out of loyalty to a friend.
In sentencing, Justice Stephen Kaye said he accepted that Sitar
was the organiser of the plot but said Franze played “an important, and
substantial, role”. “The inevitable inference is that you succumbed to
the lure of the potentially enormous profits, which might be derived
from dealing with the substantial amounts of the substances that were
involved in the enterprise,” he said.
On August 16, Justice Kaye sentenced Franze to a minimum of 13
years, taking into account Franze’s minor criminal record and the fact
his wife suffers from depression, anxiety and severe panic attacks.
