The Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin sentenced 65-year-old Adelaide man Guiseppe Bruno Romeo to nine years in prison on 6 January 2020 for organising the supply of 300 kg of cannabis between July 2016 and March 2018 and receiving $1.8 million in cash as proceeds of crime.[1] He had pleaded guilty on 26 November 2019, and the sentence was backdated to his arrest and custody from 8 March 2018, with a non-parole period of six years and four months.[1] He was the sixth person jailed over the enterprise investigated by the Northern Territory Joint Organised Crime Taskforce as Operation Jackfish.[1]
The taskforce, comprising the Australian Federal Police, Northern Territory Police, Australian Border Force, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and Home Affairs, found the Adelaide-based head sent boxes of 20 to 25 kg of cannabis by freight to Darwin while cash flowed back via ATM deposits, couriers on commercial flights and freight boxes to Adelaide.[1] The prosecution case at his August 2019 committal was that Romeo ran the shipments through Greyhound bus freight services and rental cars, with a driver giving evidence of the operation’s inner workings.[2] Police identified two Darwin distributors, a 54-year-old active from July 2016 to late 2017 and a 52-year-old who took over, moved interstate and distributed in Darwin and remote Indigenous communities.[1]
Officers arrested the 52-year-old and three others in early 2018, seizing $147,010 in cash, 9 kg of cannabis, drug ledgers, vacuum sealers, cash-counting machines, bank records, phones and three vehicles across three search warrants.[1] Romeo was arrested and extradited from Adelaide to Darwin on 29 March 2018, and weeks later the first Darwin distributor was arrested holding 5.4 kg of cannabis and extensive syndicate ledgers.[1] The 54-year-old, the two women and the alleged customer each pleaded guilty and received varying prison terms, and in August 2019 the 52-year-old pleaded guilty to supplying 150 kg for Romeo before his November sentencing to five years, suspended after two and a half years behind bars.[1] Cash and vehicles seized in the investigation were placed under forfeiture orders.[1]
