The fate of Canberra drug trafficker and money launderer Mohammed Al-Mofathel will soon be learned after Justice David Mossop began sentencing proceedings.
The white Lamborghini Gallardo sports car, which has been a much-discussed topic during the long-running case, remains parked up at the police exhibit centre in Mitchell - one of the many reminders of an extravagant lifestyle funded via the volume sale of dried cannabis.
The cannabis was cultivated in "grow houses" across Canberra including one in posh Weston Street, Yarralumla, another in Palmerston and a third in Macgregor, and the cash proceeds laundered through chef James Musillon's upmarket Courgette restaurant and other means.
Mussillon, described as a brazen and enthusiastic liar by the same judge now hearing the Al-Mofathel case, was sentenced last year to three years and 11 months in jail on multiple charges of perjury, money laundering, general dishonesty. He is now out of prison.
Al-Mofathel has served around two and a half years on remand for over 100 counts of money laundering - now rolled up into one charge - as well as perjury, making false evidence, and trafficking 21.5kg of cannabis.
The total amount laundered by him and Mussillon was between $520,228 and $525,228.
Al-Mofathel has pleaded guilty to the charges.
An agreed statement of facts tendered in the Supreme Court details how Al-Mofathel and the restaurateur were collaborators in a scheme in which tens of thousands of drug-generated cash was washed in and out of bank accounts, safes and backpacks.
Intercepted phone calls revealed Mussillon would write out payslips for Al-Mofathel, and the pair would discuss whether certain bank transfers were "explainable" before they were undertaken.
Al-Mofathel's bank records revealed that between March 2018 and August 2021, he received a raft of payments, varying from between $14,590 to $102,779, some described as "Courgette Pay" and some undescribed.
Yet in the 2019-20 financial year - the first time he had lodged a tax return - Al-Mofathel's tax records showed he claimed to be a "bar manager" with an income of $36,000.
The sham arrangement of employer and employee between Mussillon and Al-Mofathel was openly revealed in intercepted phone conversations in January 2021 when the police arrived at the Courgette restaurant, seeking unsuccessfully to talk to Al-Mofathel.
When police left the restaurant, Mussillon rang him and said: "Brother, I had two cops in front of me, you idiot. That's why I tried to make out that I'm your boss".
Tracking data from Al-Mofathel's Ford Wildtrak Ranger ute on July 4, 2021, also revealed how it was driven to a location in Belconnen for four and half minutes, then the Big Splash car park in Macquarie for six minutes 20 seconds, made two more shorter stops in Belconnen and Braddon, then returned to Al-Mofathel's apartment on Bunda Street.
Around 7.40pm that night, at a traffic stop with the same Ranger on Coulter Drive, police found five large and heavy vacuum-sealed bags of dried cannabis in the tray of the ute, as well as $14,500 in cash in the cabin.
Justice Mossop is set to hand down a sentence on April 22.
