{"id":598162,"date":"2026-04-10T16:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598162\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T16:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:02:12","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-dealing-with-millions-in-cash-from-illegal-tobacco-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598162\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to dealing with millions in cash from illegal tobacco sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has pleaded guilty in a New South Wales court to dealing with $4 million in cash, stemming from illegal tobacco sales in Queensland.<\/p>\n

Victorian man Malek Alhmedai, 51, was driving a hire car when he was stopped by police at Heatherbrae, north of Newcastle, in December 2024.<\/p>\n

Once he was pulled over, officers asked him a simple question.<\/p>\n

“Is there anything in the car that you shouldn’t have?”<\/p>\n

Alhmedai replied, “maybe $2 million” from his money exchange business in Victoria.<\/p>\n

The exchange is included in agreed police facts, tendered in Newcastle District Court yesterday, after he pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n

The Victorian money trader told police “he could not leave his money in his shop and takes it with him”.<\/p>\n

Police searched the car and found a large amount of cash.<\/p>\n

Alhmedai told police he did not count the money and was only guessing the amount he had inside the car.<\/p>\n

The cash totalled $4,007,425, with Alhmedai pleading guilty to dealing with property that is the proceeds of crime.<\/p>\n

\"Exterior<\/p>\n

Malek Alhmedai is due to be sentenced in Newcastle District Court in July. (ABC Newcastle: Robert Virtue)<\/p>\n

Interstate links<\/p>\n

Agreed police facts said Alhmedai and two Brisbane tobacco shops had been under surveillance as part of Project Magnir, a multi-state investigation by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).<\/p>\n

The Commission had been monitoring tobacconists in Burpengary and Strathpine in Queensland.<\/p>\n

Both had been raided by Queensland Health in the months prior to Alhmedai’s arrest, with officials seizing tens of thousands of illegal cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Police facts said investigators were watching Alhmedai, who had flown from Melbourne to Brisbane at 6:46 am on December 20, 2024.<\/p>\n

Once in Brisbane he hired a car, which was loaded with the cash, before his trip south led to his arrest.<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Malek Alhmedai has pleaded guilty to dealing with millions of dollars derived from illegal tobacco sales. (ABC South East SA: Josh Brine)<\/p>\n

Money trail<\/p>\n

The police facts said once the money was seized, police conducted further investigations.<\/p>\n

“During the counting process it was identified that a large number of $50 notes appeared to be newly issued and were in sequential order.”<\/p>\n

“The Reserve Bank of Australia reviewed the serial numbers of the money and confirmed that these notes had been issued to the cash-in-transit company Armaguard on 26 November 2024.”<\/p>\n

The police facts said “Armaguard identified they had made the cash deliveries to a businesses associated with the sale of tobacco.”<\/p>\n

The court was told Alhmedai is an Iraqi national and holds permanent residency in Australia.<\/p>\n

He had no criminal record in either Australia or Iraq.<\/p>\n

Alhmedai remains on bail and is due to be sentenced on July 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has pleaded guilty in a New South Wales court to dealing with $4 million in cash,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,1108,48,18068,291785,187,44,1158],"class_list":{"0":"post-598162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-illegal-tobacco","13":"tag-malek-alhmedai","14":"tag-money","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-police"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}