An investigation into the Illawarra’s illicit firearms trade has claimed the scalp of a then-teenage gunrunner.
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Conor Lavan is awaiting sentencing after a jury this week found him guilty of illegally possessing and supplying firearms.
Lavan supplied one of the guns to a friend as a favour, as partial payment for a $76,000 drug debt owed to the Lone Wolf outlaw motorcycle club .
The State Crime Command’s Firearms Squad set Lavan in its sights during a surveillance operation by Strike Force Yarmuk in mid-2016.
Officers were listening in when Lavan’s friend, now a police informant who can only be known as Mr Brown, turned to him for help the afternoon of September 15, 2016.
During the recorded telephone conversation, Mr Brown tells Lavan members of the Lone Wolves followed his “driver”, before confronting him over the drug debt at his Wollongong home earlier that day.
“I’ve got til tonight to f--king bring them 15 roscoes … a car and, like, 15 grand cash,” Mr Brown tells Lavan, then aged 19.
“I’ve got two,” Lavan says.
“Two what? Cash?”
“Them … We’ll sort something out and I’l try and help you as much as I can”.
Lavan would later tell detectives he was referring to cars when he offered two of “them”.
But the jury favoured the version of Mr Brown, who admitted to police: “roscoes is a code word we use for guns”.
The jury returned its verdict on Monday, finding Lavan guilty of possessing a stolen .270 Ruga rifle.
The rifle was reported stolen from a Fairy Meadow home on June 5-6, 2016 and recovered during the police operation at a Mangerton home linked to Lavan.
He was found not guilty of possessing a Howa .223 rifle stolen from the same Fairy Meadow address.
That firearm, together with a .303 rifle and a bag of ammunition, was recovered on September 15, 2016, after Strike Force police executed a search warrant at Mr Brown’s Wollongong home.
Lavan was also found guilty of supplying a shortened .22 rifle that was produced in spectacular style in the Wollongong CBD earlier that afternoon.
Strike force police removed Mr Brown from a hotted-up car on Crown Street, placed him on the footpath and –as passers-by stopped to stare – pulled the rifle out of his pants.
Mr Brown was sentenced over the guns found at his home last year. The jury heard his own prison sentence was reduced by about 15 per cent in exchange for the information he gave police.
He ended his recorded conversation with Lavan warmly, thanking his friend for his help and telling him, “love you bro”.
But come trial time, Mr Brown avoided Lavan’s gaze as he delivered the evidence that would damn him.
The matter returns to court on June 8 for sentencing.