A hidden camera in a palm tree was the undoing of a drug trade police estimate was worth $10million a year on the border of NSW and Queensland.
The ‘Lane Boys’ in Nimbin, NSW, would stand out the back of the Nimbin Museum, where police allege they would sell between two and three kilograms of cannabis a day.
But after Strike Force Cuppa, which saw 40 arrested, charged and found guilty, the booming local trade has died down, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Pictured: The tree that brought down the Nimbin drug trade, which police estimate was worth $10million a year
Officers installed a hidden camera within the fronds, and brought down a business which had been passed through generations since the 70s
Nimbin has enjoyed a publicly positive stance towards cannabis and an openly conducted drug trade for years. The town in northern NSW is even home to its own Hemp Embassy (pictured) – Daily Mail Australia does not suggest the Embassy is part of any illegal activity
Police allege the ‘Lane Boys’ were selling between two and three kilos of cannabis each day (pictured is cannabis seized during the lengthy take down of the trade)
Locals protested when the men appeared at Lismore court, arguing for those arrested cannabis had always been a normal part of their lives.
But a Magistrate told the men: ‘I don’t care what you grew up with, it’s illegal’, and sentenced at least seven of them to jail, The Northern Star reported.
After six of the men were arrested in June, Richmond Local Area Command Crime Manager Inspector Cameron Lindsay told reporters they had been using drug sales to fund a lifestyle of luxury.
‘They were living a gangster lifestyle in the Gold Coast area,’ he said.
‘Living in lavish style houses and unsupported by any kind of work, frequenting casinos, driving flash cars and the like.’
Police allege the men arrested were living ‘gangster lifestyles’ on the Gold Coast and were rich because of the drug trade
Jesse Ward Howard (left) and Mahalie Bayles (right) received suspended sentences
Police alleged the group were ‘unsupported by any kind of work’ but drove luxury cars
Officers found stacks of cash in one man’s wallet, allegedly from selling cannabis
Insp. Lindsay later told the Telegraph the men were a ‘criminal gang’ selling hydroponically grown cannabis as well as amphetamines, LSD and prescription drugs.
The gang was ‘made of people with connections with Nimbin’, he said, but the men lived on the Gold Coast.
‘[They were] leading what I would describe as the gangster lifestyle — driving expensive cars, with expensive toys like jet skis and spending a lot of time at Jupiter’s Casino,’ he said.
Police shared photographs of the alleged syndicate’s luxurious belongings, as well as of notes fallen onto the ground which contributed to a total seizure of $55,000 during one round of arrests
Police alleged the men had been spending ‘a lot of time at Jupiter’s Casino’ on the Gold Coast and questioned how they could have afforded their lifestyle
During the execution of six search warrants on one day in June 2016, police also uncovered firearms
Police alleged the men were not only dealing cannabis, and claimed to have also found MDMA and amphetamines
Months on, the town has not recovered from the blow. While tourists continue to pour in, the drug trade in the town is no longer performed out in the open, if at all.
Locals have mourned the relaxed trade, which The Sydney Morning Herald reports has been running through generations of Lane Boys since the 1973 Aquarius Festival.
They complain ice is beginning to flood the area, and that all the dealers are ‘too scared’ to sell anymore, or are locked up in jail.
Others credit the boys entirely with keeping ice off the street for so long. In a video created by residents of Nimbin recently, one man notes there are needles scattered through the park, where previously there were none.
Locals have mourned the loss of the men, and say ice is taking over the small town
The drug trade in Nimbin is no longer an overt act, and many suspect the trade has all but disappeared