A disastrous chain of events that foiled one of Australia's biggest drug smuggling operations reads like a Hollywood movie script.
The undoing of an international drug ring that saw $73 million worth of drugs end up on a barren island off Western Australia's coast involved a calamitous pocket dial, two shipwrecked yachts and a giant seal.
Details of the series of bungles that led to the conviction of five drug dealers and discovery of 900 kilograms of cocaine, ecstasy and ice – worth an estimated $73 million – were revealed in separate trials before WA's Supreme Court over the last few months.
The results were suppressed until now as the last of those involved, Antoine Dicenta, admitted his guilt.
The plan began to unravel on the afternoon of September 3, 2019, when a local fisherman from the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of the mid-west WA city of Geraldton, spotted a yacht listing on a reef on one of the 122 islands that make up the region.
He went to investigate and discovered the vessel, called the Zero, had been abandoned.
There were signs its support vessel had been launched, so the fisherman contacted the authorities, who started a search operation for the possibly missing crew.
A giant seal saves the day
But the next day, the attention of searchers was drawn to another island named Burton, about eight kilometres away, where a second fishing vessel had reported seeing a man.
They described him as wearing a colourful shirt and said they saw him popping up from the island's vegetation and waving them away before disappearing into the shrubs again.
A plane was deployed and when police arrived, they found two men – Dicenta and British national Graham Palmer.
The duo tried to flee but their escape attempt was foiled by a giant seal, according to Damien Healy, a vice commander of the local volunteer marine rescue service.
"They woke it up and it jumped with its big chest out and bellowed at them," Mr Healy told ABC Radio.
Huge stash of drugs found beneath seaweed
A search of the island uncovered 40 duffel bags, partially covered in seaweed and rocks, containing individually wrapped packages of drugs.
In total there was more than 380 kilograms of cocaine, close to 345 kilograms of MDMA or ecstasy and 171.2 kilograms of methylamphetamine, more commonly known as ice.
The two drug dealers' journey had started two weeks before, almost 7,000 kilometres away in Madagascar, off the African East coast, where the pair had boarded the Zero, according to Commonwealth prosecutor, Darren Renton SC.
From there they went to Richards Bay in South Africa where on July 27, Dicenta used his mobile phone to record two whales swimming nearby.
His voice could be heard on the recording and there were glimpses of Palmer in the video.
Pocket call records drug handover
But that was not the only recording Dicenta made. About an hour later, seemingly accidentally, his mobile phone was recording the very moment the Zero took possession of the drugs from another vessel.
The recording, which was played in the Supreme Court, lasted for several minutes and started with the sound of muffled thuds, before male voices are heard swearing, seemingly about the large quantity of drugs they're being given.
"What the f... ? How many ? F.....g hell," the men can be heard saying.
There is then talk about getting everything "put inside" before another boat comes back and references are made about "cocaine" and "ice."
Mr Renton submitted the drugs being talked about in the apparent pocket dial were the same ones that were found weeks later on Burton Island in the Abrolhos.
Tracking information helps plot yacht's course
Data from the Zero and other electronic devices found on board the vessel enabled investigators to plot its course across the Indian Ocean to Western Australia.
By September 1, it had reached the Abrolhos Islands and was sailing around the area, finally stopping at Stick Island the next day, September 2.
It is sometime around then that GPS data indicated the Zero and its illicit cargo had run aground.
During their journey, it was alleged Dicenta and Palmer had been communicating using satellite phones, at first with a person known only as "Karl" and later with a phone linked to a man called John Alexander Roy.
The drug dealers mostly communicated with Roy after they arrived at the remote WA island chain, the Zero's phone data shows, and his phone number was written on a piece of paper with the handwritten note, "okay for second part of it".
In the early hours of September 2, the following text exchange was intercepted:
John Roy: Where are the girls?
John Roy: Dad worried about [where the] girls are exactly.
Zero phone: Girls R with us.
Prosecutors alleged the references to "girls" was code for the drugs and a couple of hours later, there was this exchange:
John Roy: How far have you drifted?
Zero phone: Drifted a mile
John Roy: There is a little island nearby.
Zero phone: ... have no control where we end up ... Please ask the guys to hurry up or we are f....d. We have radio.
John Roy: I am mate.
Drug smuggling mission turns to rescue operation
While it was alleged the plan from the outset had been for another vessel to rendezvous with the Zero and take possession of the drugs, it now appeared that vessel, a Bayliner, would have to pick up Dicenta and Palmer as well.
The Bayliner, or DW 140 as it was referred to in court, had three men on board, Angus Jackson from New South Wales, American Jason Lassiter and British national, Scott Jones.
They had left Jurien Bay on the mainland of Western Australia earlier that day and arrived in the area of Abrolhos Islands in the evening.
But, in yet another mishap, they too ran aground on a reef on another island where they remained stuck until they could be helped by local fishermen the next day.
Wrong number dialled in growing list of bungles
The Bayliner also had a satellite phone linked to Angus Jackson, which tried repeatedly to call Dicenta and Palmer, who by this stage were stranded on Burton Island.
But this was not the last bungle in the botched smuggling attempt, with the Supreme Court hearing Jackson kept missing a digit in the number, causing the calls to Dicenta and Palmer to fail.
In the meantime, the phone linked to Dicenta and Palmer was frantically calling and texting Roy.
Zero phone: You have update ? Were are [they]?
John Roy: "Call them."
Zero phone: "I call and nothing."
By this time it was late in the evening and darkness had set in on September 2 when this text exchange took place:
John Roy: What happened to the girls?
Zero phone: ... here with me.
John Roy: Cool
Zero phone: Cool yes. But how are we going to do?
The following morning, on September 3, the Zero phone sent this text: "Tell your friends to stop f.....g around and come and get us ASAP otherwise I will leave the girls here and get my own taxi out of here."
About eight hours later Dicenta, Palmer, and the drugs, were located.
Rescue crew arrives just 40 minutes after arrest
By then the Bayliner with the take-over trio had resumed its journey, but by the time it reached Burton Island it was too late. Dicenta and Palmer had been arrested just 40 minutes earlier.
The duo was taken back to Geraldton and charged while Jackson, Lassiter and Jones, who had been on the Bayliner, were arrested in Perth more than a week later.
The Bayliner trio stood trial in Perth in February where they denied any involvement in the drug importation and claimed they were in the Abrolhos Islands for a "boys' trip" to snorkel, fish and "drink a few beers together."
Their trial lasted several weeks, but the jury deliberated for only a few hours before finding them guilty.
The verdict was suppressed because Dicenta and Palmer were due to stand trial in the following weeks.
Palmer admits guilt in ill-fated operation
A jury was sworn in, and prosecutor Darren Renton S.C. completed his opening address, before there was an adjournment so Palmer could consult his lawyers.
When the court resumed in the absence of the jury, he pleaded guilty to his role in the smuggling operation.
Palmer's barrister, Patrick Tehan QC, said the plea was entered on the basis that his client had no knowledge of the drugs until the day they were loaded onto the Zero and that his only role in the importation was bringing the drugs to Western Australia.
Dicenta initially planned to go ahead with his trial, but on Wednesday he too admitted his guilt.
The trio will face a sentencing hearing later this week, while Dicenta and Palmer will learn their fate at the end of May.
Their crime, importing a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs, carries a maximum sentence of life in jail.
In 2020, John Roy was jailed for 12 years in Britain over the importation of ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis resin, worth more than $1 million, into Jersey in the Channel Islands.
