Detectives in an international drug smuggling case pieced together information from notes and text messages to find a black rubbish bag of cocaine buried in the mud of an Auckland park.
The High Court at Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
Ryszard Wilk, Patryk Lukasik and Aleksandr Cherushev are on trial at the High Court in Auckland for importing and dealing 4kg of cocaine in 2016 and 2017.
The three men allegedly shipped and dealt the drug in New Zealand. They deny all seven charges against them.
Detective Mark Pickles, who has been involved in the police investigation into the men over the last four years - dubbed Operation Moa - gave evidence today.
The investigation had previously found a note linked to Wilk's son, Ralph, who has already pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine. The note referenced Michael Joseph Savage Memorial Park. Police visited but did not find anything of interest. Pickles said that area was too broad (the park is 49 acres) so they needed to narrow it down.
Investigators later managed to find further information on Ralph Wilk's phone.
"Following a review of the information extracted from that cellphone, messages were located within a messaging app called Signal," Pickles said.
It obliquely referred to running water and an archway, appearing to be directions to something of interest, he said.
"Following the information located within that messaging app, we decided to return to Bastion Point," Pickles said.
Nearly a month after the initial search, detectives ventured 10 metres off a public path into a heavily wooded area.
"I located an area that loosely matched the instructions from the messaging ... I found a small culvert running through the wooded area with running water, and there was an area where there were trees bent together, which could have matched the description of an archway or a doorway ... [that is] where I first saw the black plastic bag sticking out of the mud," Pickles said.
A white substance was found inside another bag inside that bag, and then inside another bag inside a vitamin jar. The substance later tested as 3.6 grams of cocaine by ESR.
Earlier, the jury heard from a police officer Detective Waugh, who read from financial statements. She said a man, Mohammed Khan, transferred $NZ8800 to Ryszard Wilk at a bank in Slovakia. Mohammed Khan has already pleaded guilty to money laundering.
The trial, before Justice Walker and a jury of seven women and five men, continues.