After a stop-start two weeks, the trial of a man accused of attempting to collect a package containing 21 kilograms of methamphetamine from a property at Bulga has been aborted.
Luke Caban, 39, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
On July 13, he faced the first day of what was expected to be a one-week trial in Newcastle District Court.
Commonwealth prosecutors alleged the 39-year-old either knew or must have been aware that a consignment of portable power stations that arrived by sea from Spain in January last year contained drugs and he then "did everything he could in order to obtain possession of that item".
They said that included waiting out the front of the property at Bulga when the package was delivered on February 5, using a fake name, signing for the consignment and being at the back of the truck ready to take possession of it when he was arrested.
The jury heard that in January last year Australian Border Force (ABF) officers at Port Botany inspected a consignment purporting to contain three portable power stations.
But when an ABF narcotic detection dog "sat down", indicating the presence of drugs, officers x-rayed the package and found a number of "anomalies consistent with some sort of concealment".
The ABF opened the package and found 51 white blocks of compressed crystalline substance, which testing later revealed was methamphetamine with a purity of 80 per cent.
The ABF handed over the package to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which launched an operation to reconstruct the package with fake drugs and make the delivery to the property at Bulga.
An AFP officer was communicating with a person purporting to be the recipient and on February 6 police were told a "Brian Hemming" was coming to collect the package.
Prosecutors allege it was Caban, using the fake name Brian Hemming, who met AFP officers driving the delivery truck outside the property at Bulga on February 5.
They say Caban confirmed his name was Brian, but when asked to spell his surname he looked at the palm of his hand.
Prosecutors allege Caban signed for the package and followed the driver to the back of the truck when he was arrested by a number of AFP officers who emerged from inside.
Caban was restrained, but prosecutors allege that an AFP officer saw him "doing things with his hands" and took a number of photos of what was written on his left hand, including the name "Brian Hemming".
The case against Caban was circumstantial and one of the key issues in the trial was whether he knew the package contained a border-controlled drug.
But after listening on-and-off to the evidence of ABF and AFP officers for the last two weeks, the jury was discharged on Monday.
Caban is expected to face trial again at a later date.
