An Altona Meadows man jailed for importing more than 200 kilograms of methamphetamine has lost a bid to stop police from confiscating his house.
Dock worker Patrick Cini and his son Rhys were arrested in 2013 after police found 205 kilograms of methamphetamine in truck tyres on a ship docked at the Port of Brisbane.
The truck had been imported by Patrick Cini’s company.
Police removed the packages and replaced them with dummy packages and let the ship continue to Melbourne.
The Cinis collected the truck and drove it to a Brooklyn factory.
They then transported the packages in plastic tubs to Patrick Cini’s Ayr Street house in Altona Meadows where they were kept until all but six packages were distributed to other locations.
The pair were sentenced in August 2014. Rhys Cini, of Point Cook, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail with a non-parole period of six years. The sentence of Patrick Cini has not been published.
In his recent bid to keep his house, Patrick Cini told the County Court that he married in 1977 and with his wife bought the Ayr Street house.
They later divorced and, as part of a settlement, Cini paid $100,000 borrowed from the ANZ Bank in 2006 to his former wife in exchange for her interest in the property. By 2010, Cini had paid back the bank loan.
The court heard this evidence was unchallenged, proving that Cini’s property had been lawfully acquired.
County Court Judge Frances Millane told the court that the use of the Ayr Street property to store the drugs was “fatal” with respect to trying to stop the property being seized.
“On this evidence alone, the applicant [Patrick Cini] had not established the Ayr Street property was not used in, or in connection with, this unlawful activity,” she said.
