The group behind the heist of half-a-million dollars worth of opals from a home in Albion Park Rail earlier this year sent the impressive haul to Melbourne to be sold, hoping to secure a buyer among the city's Jewish or Asian gemstone dealers, a court has heard.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Mercury can reveal for the first time the fate of the stones following their theft in February after the man who was given the job of trying to sell them, Wollongong's Ricky Munn, confessed to his crime in court last week.
A set of agreed facts tendered to the court said four men forced their way inside the Princes Highway home on February 10 and took the opals at gun point in a slick, timed operation that lasted less than two minutes.
It is not clear who took custody of the gemstones over the next few months, however court documents reveal the bulk of the opals came to be in Munn's possession by mid-April.
Munn, 28, was given the task of sourcing potential buyers and headed to Melbourne to sell the opals, with secret police phone taps showing he and one of the alleged thieves were in regular contact to discuss the progress of the negotiations.
"I went and seen (sic) the guy that buys all the bike parts today," Munn told the man during a conversation on the evening of April 28.
"He looked at them and he goes 'as soon as I seen (sic) the photos that you sent me, he goes, I knew they were way out of my league'.
"And then he goes, 'go to the Jews' ... so I'm going to meet these guys tomorrow and they are probably going to buy all the bike parts yeah."
The following day, Munn had another conversation with the man, telling him a jeweller had given him contact details for an opal expert in Melbourne.
"I went to see him, he was pretty like, undercover, pretty f--king, like, markets shit. He said ... 'put it under glass for six months, I'll buy it at that price'."
Over the next few days, Munn and the man continued discussing potential buyers, including "the Asians", because "they've got the money".
The court heard Munn suspected at least one of the people he approached knew the opals were stolen, saying that buyer had refused to offer any money for the gems.
"He wouldn't give me nothing for them because he knew, he ended up working out where they were from," Munn said at the time.
Meanwhile, Munn and the man also spoke about trading some of the more valuable opals for large quantities of drugs.
The court heard the man travelled to Melbourne with his family to meet up with Munn and the group all stayed in the same hotel apartment in St Kilda for a week.
Victorian police swooped on Munn and the man on the morning of May 11 as they checked out of their suite.
Officers uncovered a large number of opals in a backpack the duo had with them at the time.
When interviewed, Munn claimed he had no idea who the other man was, knew nothing about opals and played no part in helping sell any stolen ones.
However, Munn reversed that position in court last week, entering a guilty plea to a charge of dealing with proceeds of crime, after prosecutors withdrew a more serious charge of specially aggravated break and enter, accepting they could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Munn had played any part in the break-in.
He remains behind bars and will face Wollongong District Court on December 21 for a sentencing date to be set.
The Illawarra Mercury newsroom is funded by our readers. You can subscribe to support our journalism here.
