Drug kingpin sent to jail

[freddie]

Drug kingpin sent to jail

Article from: The Courier-Mail

 

By Peter Michael

 

August 17, 2007 12:00am

 

DRUG kingpin Alexander Malcolm Lane does not look like a "Mr Big". But for more than a decade the Cairns father-of-two, who turns 60 tomorrow, presided over one of Australia's most sophisticated marijuana growing cartels.

The former bank manager and grazier was yesterday sentenced in Cairns Supreme Court to 13½ years' jail for his role as head of the multi-million-dollar syndicate. Justice Stanley Jones, in sentencing, said Lane was "second to none" in the organisation.

 

"You were responsible for marketing of the drug, distribution of profits, conversion of cash into gold, (and the) keeping of accounts," Justice Jones said.

 

Lane and four other syndicate members were yesterday sentenced after a three-year joint police and Australian Crime Commission investigation traced the syndicate to Europe and across Australia.

 

Officers at the time of the arrests in May 30, 2006, said it was one of the biggest and longest-running drug operations found in several decades.

 

The syndicate used helicopters to ferry men and supplies into remote bush camps on an outback cattle station, near Chillagoe, producing tonnes of high-grade cannabis every year.

 

Syndicate chiefs earned up to $300,000 each crop, paid in cash and gold bullion, with most of them burying it in secret caches including down a mine shaft at Mt Mulligan.

 

They used drug mules, paying up to $30,000 a trip, to travel to Amsterdam and bring back thousands of high-potency cannabis seeds.

 

Crop-sitters were paid $3000 a week and set up elaborate camps with tents, gas fridges, irrigation systems and cryovac machines to package the finished product.

 

Helicopters would then carry the marijuana, worth between $3 million and $4 million a crop, to waiting semi-trailers which transported it down a network of inland roads and into the Sydney and Melbourne markets between 1995 and 2006.

 

Lane, unshaven and his shirt crumpled, waved goodbye to his family as he was led away.

 

Helicopter pilot Peter Pantovich – former manager of the Bolwarra Station, 75km southwest of Chillagoe – was sentenced to eight years for his role

 

from news.com.au/couriermail/

 

I wonder if the trips to Amsterdam were tax deductible.

[jimbojones5678]

Crop-sitters were paid $3000 a week

That's a pretty damn good pay packet IMO...

 

Jimbo

[Pam]

Damn shame... that's a life sentence.

[Beans]

with most of them burying it in secret caches including down a mine shaft at Mt Mulligan.

 

Haha, Mount MULLIgan. I wonder why they decided to hide it in that mountain

 

That's some intense growing.

 

Syndicate chiefs earned up to $300,000 each crop

[Chato]

bet they didn;t find all the cash.

 

peace

c

[loylty gets u nothing]

thousands of cannabis seeds

wouldnt have cloned hey ...

thats organised crime syndications though

wen they get ya they fuck ya

fark that

bil

[Frazz]

Mr Big, former bank manager and grazier, ..... the marijuana, worth between $3 million and $4 million a crop, to waiting semi-trailers which transported it down a network of inland roads and into the Sydney and Melbourne markets between 1995 and 2006. 13½ years' jail for his role

 

What a classic ... thats 11 years x 3-4 million , but now hes gotta do another 13 years .. damn thats bad value

 

[torture]

poor bugger...

[WantDaChronic]

poor guy, but what a fool for sending people to amsterdam for seeds i would have built myself a warehouse for cloning and ordered a few hundred packs of seeds instead