Aussie, charged with smuggling K90m in drugs, denied bail

 News that matter in Papua New Guinea

Aussie, charged with smuggling K90m in drugs, denied bail

PORT MORESBY: The 31-year-old Australian man who was charged with smuggling 168kg of methamphetamine valued at K90 million into Papua New Guinea (PNG) from the US has been denied bail.

Magistrate Paul Nii on Saturday (Oct 9, 2021), through an extempore ruling, denied 31-year-old Sean Anthony Honey’s urgent application for bail at the Waigani committal court and ordered that he be remanded in Bomana Prison.

Details of the court proceedings were reported by The National:

Australian denied bail

October 12, 2021The NationalMain Stories

AN Australian man accused of smuggling 168kg of methamphetamine valued at K90 million into Papua New Guinea from the United States has been denied bail and remanded at Bomana prison.
Magistrate Paul Nii on Saturday through an extempore ruling decided on 31-year-old Sean Anthony Honey’s urgent application for bail at the Waigani committal court.
He was previously refused police bail.
Through his affidavit, Honey said he would not run away after being granted bail and also cited a medical condition.
However, prosecution lawyers submitted that the defendant may interfere with state witnesses and may also conceal evidence.
Taking both sides’ submissions, Magistrate Nii made a ruling in which he stated that the “drug of methamphetamine is a foreign object that was allegedly brought into this country” and that the “defendant’s medical issues and other things can be addressed while in custody”.
Magistrate Nii then upheld the prosecutor’s submission and the application for bail was refused.
Honey appeared for arraignment yesterday.
The lawyer representing PNG Customs, Tom Kaleh, presented the charges against Honey.
Honey has been charged with two counts of processing and smuggling 168kg of methamphetamine valued at K90million under Section 149(1) and (2) of the PNG Customs Act.
Magistrate Nii asked Honey if he understood the charges, he replied: “Yes.”
Kaleh told the court that he wanted to adjourn the matter for a month to give enough time for investigators to establish allegations against Honey.
Magistrate Nii said: “A month from now you can come back and inform me about the progress of the case, and if you would like to make amendments to the existing information, that can be done four weeks from now.”
The matter was adjourned to Nov 18 for mention.
A task force team made up of police and Customs allege that a large quantity of methamphetamine was smuggled into the country by a shipping vessel that arrived from the United States and berthed in Lae before making its way to Port Moresby.
It is further alleged that the drug was brought in consignments of food storage buckets.
Upon providing a search warrant, his home was searched and several items were seized.
The items seized included one unlicensed single-shot gun, one unlicensed pistol, live ammunitions and the methamphetamine stored in white buckets labelled “food storage” and marijuana.

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