A Campbelltown man at the centre of a synthetic cannabis syndicate operating between south-west Sydney and the Illawarra will face sentencing in August, two years after police discovered 10 kilograms of human-made pot in his car.
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Peter Thomas Algie was arrested on August 12, 2015, after investigating police pulled his vehicle over at Appin while he was returning from a supply run on the south coast.
Officers found 10kgs worth of the human-made drug in his car.
Algie later admitted he had just picked up the supply from the home of Wollongong tobacconist Anthony Cappetta.
Just hours earlier, Algie had delivered 2kgs worth of synthetic pot to a tobacco shop at Oak Flats.
Police had secretly recorded Algie and the shop’s owner, Sam Tanti, discussing that purchase and others in the weeks leading up to the bust, prompting them to carry out covert surveillance outside Tanti’s shop to capture the exchange.
Officers witnessed Algie transfer a box containing the cannabis into the boot of Tanti’s car around 5pm.
Tanti then paid Algie $4,000 cash, with the promise of a further $4,000 in the near future.
Police swooped on Tanti’s shop after Algie left, seizing the synthetic pot and arresting the 65-year-old.
During an interview with police, Tanti admitted he usually packaged the synthetic cannabis into bags weighing three grams each, then sold them to customers for $50 each.
Meantime, police recorded Algie as he picked up fresh stock from Cappetta’s house before driving back towards Campbelltown.
Detectives were waiting at Appin to pull him over. A subsequent search of his Bradbury home that evening uncovered more cannabis as well as $19,000 in cash.
Another search two months later unearthed a further 8kgs of product hidden inside a wall cavity.
Algie was charged with seven counts of commercial drug supply, with court documents revealing Algie’s interaction with the Illawarra tobacconists came off the back of several earlier encounters with buyers and sellers in Sydney.
In one such deal, Algie purchased 20kgs of synthetic cannabis worth $50,000 from a man in Glenmore Park and transported it to a storage facility for safe keeping.
However, police seized the drugs just three days later in a covert search warrant, which was disguised as a random break and enter.
“My storage container got broken into...I just done 50 grand...50 grand of stock…there was another 30 grand profit on top for profit,” Algie told an unknown man in a recorded telephone conversation that evening.
