Alleged $830m meth schemer flees after police release

A labourer who partook in the importation 700kg of meth was offered a paltry $400 to unload the drugs while a man with allegedly greater involvement fled overseas after being released by police.

Border force officials found the drugs hidden within industrial machinery shipped from the USA in July 2024 and followed the package to a warehouse in Warwick Farm in Sydney's west.

There they found Nana Owusu-Ageyman and Michael Charumbira, 32, attempting to offload the container from a truck.

Both men were arrested but Australian Federal Police released Mr Owusu-Ageyman.

Charumbira was charged and has pleaded guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.

When he appeared before Sydney's Downing Centre District Court for sentencing, it was revealed his alleged accomplice had fled the country despite being known to police.

"I thought that was a bit curious," Judge Christopher O'Brien remarked during a hearing on June 9.

When asked why Mr Owusu-Ageyman was let go, an AFP spokesperson gave a short statement.

"A decision on whether to lay charges is made based on evidence available to investigators at the time," he said on Tuesday.

Charumbira was offered $400 to $500 to find someone who could drive a forklift and unload the shipment, according to agreed facts seen by AAP.

The drugs themselves were worth an estimated $830 million.

The labourer proposed his then-friend Mr Owusu-Ageyman as the driver without realising the man's greater involvement in the plot, Charumbira's barrister Simon Buchen SC previously argued.

According to the facts, Mr Owusu-Ageyman was seen at a meeting almost two weeks before the delivery where he and another man took an envelope containing $34,000 cash to a bank to pay for the costs of shipping the machinery.

Federal police swooped on the warehouse half an hour after the container arrived.

Searching Mr Owusu-Ageyman's van, officers found an envelope, scales and five boxes containing Samsung Galaxy phones, the agreed facts say.

Charumbira was found with a matching phone containing photographs of drugs from another shipment.

That phone - which he claimed he had found in the warehouse - was remotely wiped while he and Mr Owusu-Ageyman were under arrest.

Charumbira told police he had been hired for the job by a man he met at a bar known only as Silk Road, who had paid him several hundred dollars at a time for ad-hoc jobs.

He claimed he wanted to return the Samsung phone to Silk Road.

He told officers he did not know the man's real name or who owned the warehouse.

"Everything's all ghost mode," the 32-year-old said.

He was unaware the machinery contained illegal drugs but was reckless as to that possibility, according to the court documents.

Mr Buchen has argued for his client to receive a suspended sentence, pointing to his limited role and below average cognitive functioning that left him susceptible to being influenced by others.

Charumbira was manipulated by Silk Road and Mr Owusu-Ageyman, he said.

Prosecutors have pushed for the labourer to spend time behind bars.

He will be sentenced in July.