A man busted by Organised Crime Squad police in the Hunter as he transported a submachine gun from the Gold Coast was also detected offering to supply more than two kilograms of heroin on an encrypted messaging app.
Michael John Seymour, 40, of Wadalba on the Central Coast, was contracted to drive to Queensland and pick up a MAC-10 submachine gun in August 2025.
He and the buyer had agreed to split the profit, and Seymour organised 60-year-old Peter Raymond Withers to drive him from the Central Coast to the Gold Coast and back on August 12 and 13.
The pair were about an hour from home when police, suspecting they were transporting drugs, pulled them over at the Twelve Mile Creek heavy vehicle checking station.
A search of the car revealed 62 grams of cocaine in the glovebox and a shopping bag containing a privately manufactured MAC-10 submachine gun, silencer and 150 rounds of ammunition.
Seymour appeared in Newcastle Local Court this week via audio-visual link from jail, where he pleaded guilty to possession of an unauthorised prohibited firearm, supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and other weapons and drug charges.
Withers also appeared in court from jail and pleaded guilty to supplying 62 grams of cocaine after prosecutors dropped the other firearm offences.
Seymour will appear in Newcastle District Court next month to get a sentence date, while Withers will learn his fate in Raymond Terrace Local Court.
Seymour was involved in a car crash at Green Point in 2024 and, as a result, police searched his vehicle and phone, according to court documents.
Police went through messages on an encrypted application and discovered Seymour had offered to supply a total of 2.13kg of heroin to three other unknown people.
It was in August 2025 that Seymour was contacted on the encrypted messaging app and hired to drive to Queensland to pick up the gun.
Seymour then sent photographs of the gun to five other people on the app, telling them it was for sale for $45,000.
He arranged for Withers to drive him up to Queensland and the pair stopped overnight at Ballina.
The next morning they picked up the gun, silencer and ammunition and started heading south towards the Central Coast when they were stopped at Twelve Mile Creek and arrested.
