Christmas in jail for alleged gang pivot
A GOLD Coast panelbeater alleged to be at the centre of a Middle Eastern organised crime network selling cocaine on the Glitter Strip will remain behind bars until next year.
Jaymin Ray Higham was arrested this month after a raid at his high-end apartment at the Hilton Surfers Paradise and charged with trafficking cocaine, entering a premises and extortion.
His Supreme Court bail application was abandoned this week. Higham was arrested as part of an organised crime gangs squad investigation, which began in 2016 to target drug trafficking on the Gold Coast.
The 31-year-old panelbeater is alleged to be part of a Middle Eastern crime syndicate that “regularly used violence associated with drug trafficking”.
Police allege Higham is a “significant figure” in the syndicate and say his arrest will have an effect on its operations and activities.
Police allegedly linked him through telephone intercepts to a trafficking operation allegedly involving Chris Duspara and Onur Ada, who were charged in November over the drug racket with alleged bikie links.
Police allege Duspara and Ada sold cocaine worth more than $200,000 to about 60 customers more than 300 times between September 2016 and March this year. The pair were arrested last month after raids at their Bundall and Surfers Paradise properties.
Duspara and Ada had planned to open a car dealership before being charged in relation to the syndicate, the Southport Magistrates Court was told last month.
Higham was on Supreme Court bail at the time of his arrest after being charged alongside several other men over the alleged assault of a 26-year-old man at a Southport workshop in January. The attack allegedly involved up to 16 people who the victim claims assaulted him, tied him to a chair, cut his groin and poured paint thinner on him.
In a bail application in the Queensland Supreme Court on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Sam Bain argued Higham should not be released on bail.
He said Higham was an unacceptable risk of reoffending because he allegedly committed “serious offences” while on Supreme Court bail.
It was alleged Higham acted with Duspara and Ada selling cocaine at a wholesale level this year.
However, his defence barrister, Saul Holt, QC, rejected that Higham was part of a criminal enterprise and said the only evidence that he was linked to the pair was hearsay.
Mr Holt told the court he intended to make a no-caseto-answer submission when the alleged Southport torture matter was listed for a committal hearing in February.
The court heard there had not yet been a brief of evidence prepared that detailed the allegations. The bail application was adjourned until a date to be fixed following the committal hearing next year.
The acting inspector of the organised crime gangs group, detective Mick Walker, told the Bulletin Higham was a “significant arrest”.
“We allege he has been a major contributor to the drug problem on the Gold Coast and from a public safety aspect it’s a significant arrest.”
Higham has also been charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of Ritalin, possession of almost $10,000 believed to be tainted property and a mobile phone police suspect was used in the commission of a crime.
Lawyer for Higham, Ahmed Dib, of Havas and Dib Lawyers, said the fresh charges could be seen as an attempt by police to “subvert the bail process”.
“Some of these charges are alleged to have occurred almost a year and a half ago,” he said. “It is clear from the material provided the QPS knew of these allegations for quite some time now.”