The court was told that over a five-week period in early 2022, Sananikone mailed 396 packages on behalf of her daughter Mimi Sananikone, 49, at various AusPost post offices.<\/p>\n
Police intercepted 255 packages, with each found to contain illicit drugs including methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA, opium, testosterone and heroin.<\/p>\n
The pair were arrested by police on February 23, 2023, and their Hughesdale home was searched.<\/p>\n
Investigators found A$461,000 ($528,500) in cash, including $80,000 sitting out on a coffee table, and bulk drugs and drug packaging equipment hidden around their home.<\/p>\n
In a police interview, Sananikone, through a translator, said she\u2019d just left home to \u201cgo to work as usual\u201d, but she didn\u2019t know what was inside the packages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought it was legal things. You know, I \u2013 I \u2013 this is a kind of job I \u2013 I do. I work. I don\u2019t know anything in there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The court was told Mimi Sananikone ran legitimate businesses out of the home, including the sale of tea, seaweed and fungi.<\/p>\n
Sananikone\u2019s lawyers argued these legitimate businesses gave rise to an explanation of her actions that was consistent with innocence \u2013 that she believed she was helping her daughter with legal work.<\/p>\n
They argued there was no forensic link between Sananikone and the drugs and Mimi Sananikone had claimed \u201cshe kept her drug business well hidden from her mother\u201d.<\/p>\n
But handing down their decision in the Court of Appeal this month, Justices Lesley Taylor, Rowena Orr and Peter Kidd found Sananikone\u2019s guilt was the \u201conly reasonable inference open\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judges found the high volume of parcels movements and significant cash holdings left the jury entitled to come to the view Sananikone was trafficking drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese matters in combination led to the conclusion that the applicant was, at the very least, aware that the significant commercial enterprise traded in illicit substances and that she was wilfully blind to the risk that the packages contained drugs of dependence,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe jury was entitled to think that any suggestion that the applicant\u2019s daughter had amassed in excess of $450,000 cash from selling vast quantities of tea and fungi to family members and friends \u2013 and that the applicant could have thought this to be the case \u2013 was absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mimi Sananikone is serving an 18-year sentence after pleading guilty to charges of drug trafficking, dealing with the proceeds of crime and possessing the identification information of others.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The court was told that over a five-week period in early 2022, Sananikone mailed 396 packages on behalf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[121953,1040,138,23552,15970,4510,14032,3401,15453,42,30538,9641,11517,5836,44191,43,15359,121952,121951,61,40,38,41,39,121954,20923,1354],"class_list":["post-197749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-81yearold","tag-bid","tag-business","tag-claimed","tag-conviction","tag-dark","tag-daughter","tag-drug","tag-elderly","tag-headlines","tag-helping","tag-idea","tag-loses","tag-lost","tag-lucrative","tag-news","tag-overturn","tag-sananikone","tag-southsada","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trafficker","tag-trafficking","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}