A MEREWETHER man who was arrested on a luxury motor cruiser off Nambucca Heads with more than a tonne of cocaine on board has become the first person to plead guilty over the massive haul.
Jacob Malcolm, 27, appeared in Coffs Harbour Local Court on Tuesday, from jail, and admitted to supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug after prosecutors dropped a charge of participating in a criminal group.
Malcolm is one of five Hunter men who were arrested in May last year and accused of being part of a syndicate that attempted to import more than a tonne of cocaine into Australia.
The other four men were granted bail, while Malcolm remains behind bars.
He will appear in Coffs Harbour District Court next month to get a sentence date.
The charge carries a maximum of life imprisonment.
Police have said Malcolm and New Lambton electrician Cooper Hollingworth, 26, were arrested on board a luxury 13-metre Sea Ray motor cruiser about nine nautical miles off Nambucca Heads on the morning of May 9 last year.
The vessel was heading back to shore, police say, towards South West Rocks, when it was intercepted by the Marine Area Command and officers allegedly found dozens of tightly wrapped black bags containing 1100 blocks of cocaine weighing more than a tonne.
Police said the cocaine equated to more than a million individual hits of the drug and had an estimated potential street value of $623.4 million.
Malcolm was in a wetsuit and Hollingworth was "soaking wet", and detectives allege the pair were the "catching crew" for the operation.
At the same time, police say the alleged "on-shore co-ordinators" Rodney Hill, 35, of Belmont North, Luke Hazell, 29, of Edgeworth, and Chaiwat Thipsing, 29, of Beresfield, were arrested after investigators stopped two vehicles attempting to leave the South West Rocks area.
Hill, Hazell, Hollingworth and Thipsing have not entered pleas to a charge of supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and their matters are next in Coffs Harbour Local Court on September 15.
Organised Crime Squad detectives said they charged the five men after a massive multi-agency investigation targeting drug supply and money laundering.
The arrests on board the vessel and at South West Rocks led Strike Force Blaine investigators and Australian Federal Police to raid homes at Beresfield, Edgeworth, Belmont North, Cardiff South and Catherine Hill Bay, where they seized communications devices, cash, documents and clothing.
The investigation was sparked after police obtained intelligence about the suspicious purchase of the boat using a large sum of cash in Sydney's Sutherland Shire on April 28.
"Investigators, in collaboration with the NSW Crime Commission and Australian Federal Police, gathered information on those involved which led them to focus on the movements of the vessel and persons associated with the group," police said.
"With the assistance of specialist NSW Police resources and the AFP, officers continued to monitor the activities of the group as they travelled north up the NSW coast."
The bust is believed to be the biggest cocaine seizure in Australia in 2025.
