Two men will be sentenced next month over the purchase of more than $12,000 of cocaine bound for this year's Scone Cup race meet.
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Thomas James Elmes, 30, and Hamish Mark Le Poer Trench, 42, each pleaded guilty in Muswellbrook Local Court on Tuesday.
The men were targeted for surveillance after Hunter Valley police set up Strike Force Bunk last year to investigate drug supply - particularly cocaine - in the Scone area. Detectives intercepted several calls between Elmes and Le Poer Trench as well as each of the men with other associates.
About a week before this year's Scone Cup carnival, police recorded a conversation between the pair during which Elmes asked: "Do I need to pick anything up tomorrow or have we got enough for the races?". Le Poer Trench replied: "Oh, I'll have enough for the races".
Police said in an agreed statement of facts tendered to the court the men were talking about cocaine.
In another recorded phone conversation, Elmes said he had a "brick" and bragged that "we are at the height of our success".
On another occasion the married father of two said he had stayed awake all night having sex with two sex workers and "it only cost me about two grand in coke and $800 in room service".
Le Poer Trench was recorded in phone intercepts discussing drug supply and use, in one call telling an associate he had "the best bags you've ever tasted" and continuing with "when I get there, you and I are gonna go straight to the toilets".
Police confronted the men in the foyer of the Crown hotel at Barangaroo on May 11, after Elmes had bought 28g of cocaine for $12,500 - which police said in the agreed statement of facts was for the Scone Cup.
Le Poer Trench was in possession of a blue duffle bag containing the cocaine. In a search of Le Poer Trench's home, police found glucose powder used for thinning out cocaine, Ketamine, bags and electronic scales. They also discovered 104 MDMA pills he told investigators he received as payment for a mechanical job, which he had planned to give friends at a music festival that had been cancelled.
During interviews with police, the men each said they bought drugs for personal use and gave them to friends - but did not financially gain from supplying.
In court on Tuesday morning, Elmes pleaded guilty to one charge of supplying a prohibited drug greater than an indictable quantity but smaller than a commercial amount, while Le Poer Trench pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing a prohibited drug and three charges of taking part in supplying a prohibited drug more than the indictable amount but less than a commercial quantity.
