A rock and roll frontman and eight others have been arrested in Sydney after police dogs sniffed out a stockpile of drugs hidden in a music studio behind a secret, guitar-laden door.<\/p>\n
Azaria Byrne, from Sydney band The Art, and his partner Brooke Mitchell were among nine people charged over alleged large-scale drug manufacture and supply following busts.<\/p>\n
While searching the studio at Leichhardt in Sydney’s inner-west on Wednesday, police dogs led officers to a wall gleaming with electric guitars.<\/p>\n
A small push soon unveiled another door, which opened to a room allegedly containing ketamine, cannabis and other illicit drugs on an extraordinary scale.<\/p>\n
The police haul allegedly uncovered more than 17kg of cannabis, 25kg of ketamine, 2.5kg of cocaine, 3.5kg of MDMA or ecstasy and 5.6kg of diazepam.<\/p>\n
About 18,000 tablets believed to contain LSD, magic mushrooms, meth and AU$200,000 (NZ$241,925) cash were also allegedly found.<\/p>\n
Searches at Byrne and Mitchell’s home in Earlwood, as well as others in North Bondi, Potts Point, Dulwich Hill and Marrickville revealed more wads of cash and a litany of other substances, police seizing drugs worth about $5.5 million (NZ$6.65 million).<\/p>\n
One of the Marrickville properties was suspected to have been used as a drug laboratory after MDMA, ketamine and drug-making equipment was seized.<\/p>\n
“Our detectives are tireless,” Acting Superintendent Gretchen Atkins told reporters, noting police had been working on the matter since August.<\/p>\n
“They will leave no stone unturned, they will keep going to identify people who are responsible for this, and take them and these drugs off the street.”<\/p>\n
Byrne, 45, and Mitchell, 28, were both refused bail and remanded for eight weeks after facing Burwood Local Court via video link on Thursday on dozens of drug supply charges.<\/p>\n
The frontman faces 10 counts of the most serious charge \u2013 large commercial drug supply \u2013 while Mitchell faces one.<\/p>\n
If convicted of those offences, the pair face a maximum term of life imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Byrne was arrested wearing a shirt from Frankie’s Pizza, a now-closed rock ‘n’ roll bar co-owned by The Art’s drummer Jordan McDonald.<\/p>\n
There is no suggestion McDonald or other band members were involved in the alleged drug operation.<\/p>\n
The band had previously performed alongside Jimmy Barnes and taken the stage at other iconic Sydney venues like Crowbar in the inner west.<\/p>\n
Alleged ringleader, Potts Point music producer Oliver Dibley, 33, did not apply for bail after facing an online bail court.<\/p>\n
He is accused of knowingly directing the activities of a criminal group and 17 large commercial drug supply offences.<\/p>\n
All three are due back in court on May 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rock and roll frontman and eight others have been arrested in Sydney after police dogs sniffed out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-337316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337316","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=337316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}