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A Ferrari-driving Mongrel Mob associate who played a crucial part in a $100 million meth import has had his potential sentence reduced by 75% after arguing that he participated in the record-breaking scheme only under duress. Daniel Aperahama Hannett, 40, didn’t want to say which criminal organisation allegedly forced him to participate in importing the 613kg of meth. But Justice Jane Anderson agreed with prosecutors during Hannett’s sentencing last week that he had been working with the Comancheros. Hannett, who had experience with freight forwarding, had been offered to the gang in January 2022 as someone who might be of service. The person who got him into the mess was an associate close to his family who had gotten in trouble with the gang and was trying to find his way back into their good graces, authorities said. During a 55-minute meeting at a North Shore hockey field, a senior patched Comancheros member informed Hannett that he had no choice but to participate. “Hannett ultimately agreed to assist with the importation on the understanding that, if he did not, the [criminal organisation] would stand over him and take his property, and that, if he resisted, this would escalate into violence,” court documents state. He also feared for the safety of the person who had given his name to the group if he didn’t agree to help, his lawyer said. Daniel Hannett (inset) and his late-model Ferrari, which was part of $7 million worth of assets seized by police after Operation Weirton. Hannett was also charged with importing 613kg of methamphetamine. Crown prosecutor Ned Fletcher emphasised during the sentencing hearing on Thursday that Hannett wasn’t a law-abiding citizen pulled off the street and forced into a foreign criminal underworld. By the time he was recruited, he had already laundered $5m for himself from illegal drug proceeds, the prosecutor said. He owned several valuable properties, a collection of 22 performance and luxury vehicles – including late-model Ferrari and Lamborghini vehicles, two Mercedes-Benz and a Nissan Skyline worth around $300,000 – and other assets estimated to be worth $7m. While Hannett might have been strong-armed into helping the Comancheros, he also would have been motivated by the prospect of another large financial windfall from the illicit drug trade he already knew so well, Fletcher argued. “Mr Hannett had options, mainly going to the authorities,” Fletcher said, adding that the defendant had to know by his past involvement in the criminal underworld that just such a situation might arise. “He had a choice to make: yes or no. And he made his choice.” Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, represented Daniel Hannett at his sentencing hearing. Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, acknowledged his client had laundered $5m but argued it could not be proven that money was proceeds from Hannett’s own drug trafficking. He also argued there was no evidence his client expected any financial compensation for the 613kg import. Justice Jane Anderson agreed with prosecutors that the $5m in previously laundered money would have been from Hannett’s own drug offending – not from some other mystery drug trafficker he was providing a laundering service for. But she agreed with the defence that she couldn’t jump to an assumption that he was expecting a payout for the Comancheros scheme. “You were told you have no choice but to help,” the judge said. “I acknowledge the coercive power of that.” Scheme unravels Hannett pleaded guilty more than a year ago to importing methamphetamine, two counts of money laundering, a representative charge of unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition and possession of about 22g of MDMA. The methamphetamine charge was the most serious, carrying a maximum possible punishment of life imprisonment. The police National Organised Crime Group began focus...
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