An alleged international drug trafficker from the Canberra region has failed in his bid for bail after an application which detailed extraordinary claims of being taken on a sightseeing tour of Paris, while being extradited back to Australia under federal police escort.
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Rohan Arnold, 43, has been charged with five counts of importing a commercial quantity of drugs, after he allegedly used overseas business links to import more than 1.2 tonnes of cocaine, the second largest cocaine seizure in Australian history.
The stockyard director and steel importer was one of three men arrested in January this year, following the discovery of the cocaine, hidden inside hollow prefabricated steel on a Chinese container boat in Sydney last April.
Police estimate the 2576 individual blocks of cocaine had a street value of half a billion dollars.
Mr Arnold - along with Tristan Waters, 34, and David Campbell, 48 - was detained during a dramatic gunpoint arrest by local authorities in a Serbian hotel in January, where a bag containing $1 million cash was allegedly being exchanged.
Mr Arnold appeared via audio-visual link before the Supreme Court on Thursday, where he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, for each of the five charges of importation.
On Thursday the Herald revealed Mr Arnold enjoyed a mid-extradition stopover on the trip home from Serbia earlier this year.
According to claims outlined in court documents in support of Mr Arnold's bail application, the alleged trafficker was unrestrained for the duration of the seven-hour stopover, during which he took happy snaps of five Australian officials near the Eiffel Tower, using one of their mobile phones.
Mr Arnold was extradited to Australia in March, while his co-accused, Mr Campbell, was returned by authorities from Serbia to Sydney on Tuesday evening.
Mr Waters remains behind bars in Serbia, where he is fighting extradition.
A business associate of Mr Arnold, Mr Campbell, from Curtin, ACT, did not apply for bail when he appeared via audio-visual link at Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday. Bail was formally refused.
Mr Campbell's lawyer Karen Espiner was also in court for Mr Arnold's bail application on Thursday.
Companies linked to both Mr Arnold and Mr Campbell have previously supplied steel to a number of government projects in the ACT and NSW.
More to come
