Two guilty after drug trial
Polish men found to have imported cocaine but sailor cleared
Two Polish men have been found guilty of importing cocaine but a Russian sailor had his name cleared when jurors reached a verdict yesterday in the Bastion Pt cocaine trial.
Sailor Aleksandr Cherushev and Polish men Ryszard Wilk and Patryk Lukasz Lukasik pleaded not guilty to charges including importing cocaine.
Prosecutors said Cherushev sailed into New Zealand on the ship Discovery Bay from Panama, then went into downtown Auckland with kilograms of cocaine.
Wilk was found guilty on four charges including importing cocaine at the High Court in Auckland.
Lukasik was found guilty of money laundering as well as importing cocaine.
The Crown alleged Lukasik delivered that cocaine to Wilk, and to Wilk’s son Ralph.
During the trial, jurors were told Ralph Wilk had already admitted supplying cocaine.
The Crown also claimed Lukasik encouraged the enterprise, and helped with money laundering.
But Cherushev, giving evidence in his own defence, said he never met the other men on trial before he was arrested, and he had nothing to do with importing drugs.
Jurors heard from detectives who dug up rubbish bags and cocaine remnants at Auckland’s Bastion Pt Reserve in 2017.
Prosecutors said this strange stash was linked to a much bigger cocaine racket.
Police said piles of cash uncovered in a covert search and multiple seized messages linked the three men on trial to the cocaine business.
Prosecutor Brian Dickey claimed Ryszard Wilk was the group’s leader.
A Customs officer found Wilk at Auckland International Airport in April 2017 with $70,000 cash.
The Crown said that cash, and far more generated the year before, had no legitimate source.
Cherushev’s defence lawyers Ron Mansfield and Steven Lack said the sailor had no interest in drugs and was a career-driven family man.
It’s understood Cherushev will be deported. That’s because even though he committed no crime, he was no longer legally allowed to be in New Zealand.
Cherushev, from Kaliningrad, was arrested in Nelson in 2019.
Wilk and Lukasik will be sentenced on June 22.