Nikola Maksimovic: One-time Comanchero boss to expect ‘significant sentence’ for 56kg meth shipment

The man who fled to Thailand with one-time Comanchero boss Nikola Maksimovic after the fall of their drug syndicate is still on the run, it has been revealed, as the convicted drug kingpin heard he would be handed a “very significant sentence”. Maksimovic, 35, was convicted earlier this year of being “ethnic Brad Pitt” — the username used in encrypted communications by the boss of a WA drug syndicate responsible for taking hold of a 56kg meth shipment from Victoria. On Tuesday, as Maksimovic was brought back before a Supreme Court judge to learn his fate — a decision that was ultimately delayed for 24 hours — his lawyer Simon Freitag SC confirmed the Safety Bay father of two still maintained his innocence. But he said given the jury’s verdict, he “has to get a very significant sentence of imprisonment”. The sentence would have to be “much higher” than his two co-accused, Jason Gray and Quinn Paul Newton — who were described as the “transport arm” of the criminal venture and were responsible for shipping the meth by rail through a sham transport company. Newton’s lawyer James Jackson has previously told a court he expected his client to be jailed for between 18 and 20 years. And it would have to be higher than the other men who have already been dealt with, including the rollover witness and warehouse man who was key to Maksimovic’s conviction, who got 16 years, reduced by five years for giving evidence against the crime boss. In his submissions, Mr Freitag said Maksimovic had stayed out of trouble behind bars and had a job cleaning the prison officers’ area and preparing their food. He said he had missed out on the funeral of his grandmother — who helped to bring him up — while in prison and due to COVID-19 restrictions there had been months where he had not seen his wife or kids. When his family has visited, he has not been allowed to touch or cuddle them, Mr Freitag said. Mr Freitag added Maksimovic’s children were going to grow up without their father, and he would miss out on other family members’ funerals. Justice Anthony Derrick said that he had “tremendous sympathy” for the family for all of the men involved but said “the predicament they find themselves in now is of their own making, it’s as simple as that”. Justice Derrick added that Maksimovic, despite having a limited criminal record, had been found to be “in charge of a sophisticated drug-dealing enterprise”. The illicit business was smashed in a secret police investigation, codenamed operation Trident Coyote, when officers swooped on the sea container containing the drugs, swapped them with a fake substance, and followed them to a home in South Lake. Maksimovic quickly learned of the raid and fled to Thailand the next day with another syndicate member, Dayle Campbell. While Maksimovic eventually returned to Australia eight months later, prosecutors on Tuesday confirmed Campbell had not yet been apprehended and was still “outside of this jurisdiction”. The West Australian previously revealed while Maksimovic was on bail awaiting trial, he was plotting over the AN0M app with exiled Comanchero Ray Cilli, also believed to be in Thailand, to flee overseas. Maksimovic, who had been on bail since his arrest in early 2020, was taken into custody in June last year, a day before the significance of AN0M made headlines around the world. The app was used in Operation Ironside, an Australian Federal Police-led investigation that involved tricking criminals into believing they were using an encrypted app that was actually being monitored by law enforcement. Justice Derrick is expected to sentence the trio on Wednesday.