Prosecutors have conceded a Bungendore business owner was "not the mastermind" of a $144 million cocaine importation plot, and that the landscaper was recruited by a cloak-and-dagger "coffee man" to bring the drugs to Australia.
Adam Phillip Hunter, 35, appeared in the NSW District Court via video link from the Goulburn Correctional Centre for a sentence hearing on Wednesday.
The former Queanbeyan resident is facing a maximum possible sentence of life behind bars after pleading guilty to a charge of attempting to import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
Hunter, who owned Bungendore Landscape Supplies, has admitted trying to get a second-hand excavator that had been stuffed with 384kg of cocaine past the Australian border in 2019.
He sought to explain himself in June, telling the court he and his business were in serious financial strife when a regular client, dubbed "the mysterious coffee drinker" by Judge Andrew Colefax, came to his yard for a hot beverage.
Hunter claimed this man, whom he refused to name, offered to reimburse him for an excavator and let him keep it.
But first, Hunter had buy the digger, import it from South Africa and hire it out to people who would remove something that had been hidden inside.
The 35-year-old said he wanted the machine for legitimate business and suspected, but did not know for sure, that it contained a shipment of illicit drugs.
He told the court he agreed to the plan and was given an encrypted Ciphr phone, through which he received further instructions from organised crime figures who had codenames like "Bilderberger", "Notorious" and "Kaynen".
On Wednesday, prosecutor Jonathon Emmett said he accepted Hunter was "not the mastermind" of the importation plot.
"It's conceded that he was recruited by the coffee man," Mr Emmett told the court.
"We don't dispute the coffee man conversation."
Mr Emmett added that the prosecution did not allege Hunter had any involvement in importing illicit drugs beyond attempting to pass on the cocaine that was hidden inside this particular excavator to "other members of the syndicate".
But he said he would argue Hunter was "aware of the significant quantity" of drugs inside the machine, despite the 35-year-old's evidence to the contrary.
Earlier, during a hearing repeatedly disrupted by technological problems, Hunter reiterated his assertions that he was largely in the dark about the plot.
He said he had planned to hire out the machine as instructed by "Bilderberger", and that things only changed when it was delivered to his landscaping yard in poor condition.
Hunter claimed he was then told by the organised crime figures directing him that they would give him $50,000 on top of the effectively "free" excavator if he retrieved what was concealed inside himself and left it for someone to collect.
It was during the 35-year-old's efforts to empty the cocaine from inside the machine's hydraulic arm that police, who had him under surveillance, swooped on the Bungendore yard and arrested Hunter on July 14, 2019.
Investigators had earlier intercepted the 20-tonne CAT digger and substituted 384 blocks of cocaine, which each weighed 1kg, for an inert substance.
Little progress was made in the sentence hearing on Wednesday before Judge Colefax adjourned it in light of almost constant issues with links to lawyers appearing from remote locations.
Mr Emmett is expected to continue his submissions on sentence next Monday before Hunter's barrister, Kieran Ginges, addresses the court.
