A landscaper allegedly involved in a plot to retrieve nearly 300kg of imported cocaine from an excavator was recorded telling his business partner it would be "every man for himself" if things turned "to shit", a prosecutor has told a jury.
The trial of Queanbeyan resident Timothy John Engstrom, aged in his 30s, started in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday after he pleaded not guilty to a federal drugs charge.
He has denied attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
In his opening address, prosecutor Adam McGrath told the jury Engstrom and close friend Adam Phillip Hunter, 37, had co-directed a struggling business called Bungendore Landscape Supplies in mid-2019.
Mr McGrath told jurors they would hear recordings of intercepted phone calls from around that time, when Engstrom discussed the business' woes with Hunter but also spoke about "a financial windfall he was expecting".
He alleged that was to come in the form of a drug-filled excavator, which was intercepted by authorities at the Australian border when it arrived from South Africa in June 2019.
Mr McGrath said when the machine was X-rayed, it was found to contain 384 plastic-wrapped blocks that held about 276kg of pure cocaine.
He told jurors police removed the drugs from the digger and replaced them with an inert substance before the machine was delivered to the landscaping business, which was the consignee, in July 2019.
The prosecutor indicated that in addition to the phones of Hunter and Engstrom being tapped in the lead-up to the delivery, police also had the pair's landscaping shed under video and audio surveillance.
On the day the machine turned up, Mr McGrath told jurors, the business partners were covertly recorded "discussing their plans for the forthcoming Sunday, when they were going to retrieve the drugs".
"They're talking about cutting into an object," the prosecutor said.
Mr McGrath added that Engstrom raised the issue of what they should do "if it all turns to shit", saying the accused had gone on to declare it would be "every man for himself".
The prosecutor said Hunter had come up with a plan to have two cars at the ready, with one parked around the side of the business, prompting Engstrom to remark: "It's good to have a f---ing contingency".
He told jurors they would also see surveillance video captured three days after this conversation, when Engstrom allegedly used an angle grinder to cut into the arm of the excavator.
Engstrom eventually removed a panel and exchanged a celebratory "fist bump" with Hunter, Mr McGrath said, before watching his business partner reach into the digger and pull out packages.
Police subsequently used an angle grinder of their own to break into the pair's shed and arrest them.
In his opening address, Engstrom's counsel told the jury there would be no dispute about several things.
These included the Crown's claim that Hunter and Engstrom had been close friends who had co-owned a struggling business, and the fact "the excavator landed and it had a lot of cocaine in it".
But the barrister said any suggestion that Engstrom had become involved in an enterprise to import cocaine as a result of financial woes would be "denied in the strongest possible terms".
"Did not happen," he told the jury.
Defence counsel also said the key issue for jurors to determine would be whether Engstrom had known, or believed there was a substantial risk, that the excavator had contained a border-controlled drug.
He argued the Crown would not be able to prove his client had either known about the machine's contents or been reckless about what was found to be hidden inside it.
The trial, before the jury and Judge Gina O'Rourke SC, continues.
