THE GROUNDWORK had been laid for hundreds of kilograms of cocaine to be shipped to an Upper Hunter property.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Peter Leslie Ritson had created a front freight company, opened a bank account, established contact with a "mysterious" man in Peru and recruited a co-offender to be his "secretary".
For four years, the now 62-year-old was "extremely committed to the cause" of conspiring to import a commercial quantity of drugs into Australia.
It was a job that has landed him in jail for a decade, but when he looked back on his role, he told the court: "It was a job and I had to eat".
Through either mismanagement or border force intercepts, Ritson's efforts to facilitate the arrival of four shipping containers - each packed with more than 100 kilograms of drugs - failed each time. The first container arrived in 2018 and was taken to a property near Scone, where Ritson and his accomplice, Felicity Fraser, pulled apart wood trying to find where 100 kilograms of cocaine had been hidden.
In 2019, two shipments arrived but no drugs ever did.
![Upper Hunter coke import plot 'was a job and I had to eat' Upper Hunter coke import plot 'was a job and I had to eat'](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/69fUThMh3V6mENHE7Nwkb5/33ed2f8a-f4f2-4133-9d2e-24fa56e87c01.jpg/r1_0_799_449_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"There was planning under way for the fourth container," Judge Troy Anderson said during sentencing in Sydney Downing Centre District Court yesterday.
That planning extended into 2021 due to logistical issues with international shipping in the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fourth shipment never arrived.
Between 2017 and 2020, Ritson had also arranged his overseas contacts to send "samples" of illicit drugs - cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin - hidden in paper, jukeboxes, coconut oil and ink toner cartridges. The court heard about $1.5 million went through the bank account Ritson and Fraser had access to, though it remained unclear how much Ritson was paid for his role.
Judge Anderson sentenced Ritson to 10 years and six months behind bars, with a non-parole period of seven years. He had pleaded guilty to conspiring to import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
He was handed a four-month jail term for firearms offences, after police discovered a rifle in his shed when they searched his property.
With time served, Ritson will be eligible for release in March 2029.