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How ACT police took down cocaine dealer Abdul Karim Nikro
Michael InmanPublished: August 21 2017 - 12:00AM
Police took down cocaine dealer Abdul Karim Nikro minutes after he handed over a Maccas bag to an undercover cop.
Armed members of ACT Policing's special response group swarmed the Mitsubishi 4WD the pair were sitting in, cuffing Nikro and placing him under arrest.
A look inside the McDonald's bag revealed about 283 grams of cocaine.
Nearby, there was a lumpy yellow JP Hi-Fi bag containing $50,000 in cash, payment for the drugs.
Raids on his car and properties in Civic, Crace and Lyneham uncovered a total of about $230,000 in cash, 450 grams of cocaine, scales and 150 grams of cutting agent.
Nikro was convicted, jailed, and prosecutors seized his assets, which included a Crace house, a silver Mercedes Benz, a Toyota Hilux, and $180,282 cash.
The Crace property recently sold for more than $750,000.
Nikro had been free on bail for two northside growhouses at the time of the sting, but this conditional liberty had done little to temper his criminal activities or stop him flashing his wealth.
The renderer switched between driving a silver Mercedes and a Toyota Hilux, lived in a Civic apartment, was building a four-bedroom house in Crace, and had previously owned investment properties in Gungahlin.
That was despite declaring income of just $11,040 in 2012 and $25,775 in 2011.
But the police were watching and set up an uncover sting to trap Nikro.
Nikro's downfall came after he sold an undercover officer more than $120,000 worth of cocaine over three controlled deals in Crace between April and May in 2014.
Police surveillance had also brought Nikro undone after he had been spotted at growhouses in O'Connor and Macgregor in 2011.
Police discovered, after raids, that the O'Connor property had been modified to grow cannabis with an illegally diverted power supply and three rooms, a granny flat and a shed fitted with plastic sheeting on the floor.
Nikro had been seen at the home six times over a two-month period, his DNA was found in plastic gloves found in a bin, and his palm print discovered inside the house.
Only months later, police sprung Nikro at a sophisticated Macgregor grow house.
Police found a hidden door leading to a secret underground two-room basement that housed a hydroponic irrigation system for the cannabis plants.
Fertiliser, green vegetable matter, water tanks, heat lamps, fans and a thermometer were also discovered.
DNA samples from a cigarette butt found in the garage matched Nikro.
Nikro was charged with cocaine trafficking and cultivating cannabis and jailed in 2015 for a maximum of four years and nine months.
Nikro claimed he owed $80,000 in drug debts and was using about $1500 worth of cocaine a day before his arrest.
It is understood he was released on parole late last year.
Nikro lost more than just a part of his life to jail, with prosecutors seizing his belongings as criminal assets, which were worth more than $1 million.
Nikro attempted to fight the seizures but Justice John Burns found against the drug dealer in what is considered the seminal decision in the ACT dealing with the interaction between the Human Rights ACT and Confiscation of Criminal Assets.
Nikro's lawyers had attempted to seek an exclusion order to stop the Crace home being confiscated.
His legal team argued the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions acted unlawfully, the confiscation amounted to double jeopardy, and the seizure had been at odds with the ACT's human rights laws and .
In response, prosecutors argued the house had become tainted when Nikro used it to store the cocaine cutting agent and scales he used to traffic the drug.
Prosecutor Anthony Williamson said the bid to seize Nikro's assets was not punitive, did not amount to double punishment, and was an automatic consequence of his conviction.
Justice Burns, in a decision published in February, found the seizure did not breach human rights laws.
The judge said Nikro had used the Crace property to prepare, store, and conceal the cocaine he trafficked, and that there was "a real and demonstrable connection" between the use of the house - which Nikro said he bought with two loans in 2013 - and the conviction.
Justice Burns also found there was "unsatisfactory" evidence of Nikro's legitimate income, and of how he was able to service two loans when he was heavily in debt in the years leading up to April 2014.
"It is probable that he chose to use the Crace property for this purpose, as opposed to his apartment in the city, because it was secure but at the same time allowed him to deny knowledge of the drugs if they were found there," the judge wrote.
"The evidence does not convince me that the Crace property was not derived, at least in part, from the proceeds of trafficking in cocaine."
Justice Burns found the seizure of the house did not constitute punishment for the crimes, rather it stripped Nikro of any material advantage from his crimes and prevented him using the property to commit further offences.
In a further blow, Nikro was ordered to pay the DPP's costs for the proceedings.
This story was found at: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/how-act-police-took-down-cocaine-dealer-abdul-karim-nikro-20170816-gxx6uv.html