Details of how a convicted drug dealer was able to carry on his lucrative business, importing drugs into WA and exporting dirty cash out of it, all while locked up at Yongah Hill Detention Centre, have been aired in court.
Andrew John Hickling, 35, was due to be sentenced on eight counts of dealing meth and money laundering on Tuesday, but a Perth District Court judge will take time to consider before handing down his sentence next month.
Andrew John Hickling was running a lucrative drugs operation from a Northam detention centre.
The court on Tuesday heard extensive insights into Hickling’s offending as prosecutors outlined how Hickling was allowed to deal drugs undetected from inside a detention centre, earning hundreds of thousands in profits and millions more in owed earnings.
The story begins with Hickling being sentenced for 17 months for drugs charges in 2019. Released on parole in November 2020, the New Zealand national then faced deportation under Commonwealth rules.
He was taken to Yongah Hill immigration detention centre 80 kilometres east of Perth where, like others, he awaited deportation. During that time, Hickling resumed his business, using people on the outside to pick up drugs, drop them off to customers and post large sums of dirty money to the eastern states on his behalf.
On Tuesday the court heard how Hickling used Australia Post outlets, interstate courier truck services and storage units to get methamphetamine and heroin into WA. He had four mobile phones which he used from his cell to communicate with those who worked for and with him.
Text messages read in court show the extent of Hickling’s involvement: he claimed to use four different trucking companies to courier the drugs into the state, saying in one message, “we change them all the time” to avoid detection.
A few days before his arrest in January 2022, undercover police tracked a truck that had entered WA from South Australia. It stopped at a fuel station in Midvale, where the driver handed an orange backpack to a man in a Holden Commodore. Police tracked that car to a house in Booragoon where they executed a search warrant and found nearly 6 kilograms of meth wrapped in clothing in a clip-seal bag in the backpack.
Hickling received a text message: “Duggan got arrested, so did truckie, clean up, stay safe”.
He knew the police were closing in.
Hickling then sent a message saying “they know nothing,” and then, “we’re alright cos they’ve never seen us”, referring to the truck driver.
Andrew John Hickling was running a lucrative drugs operation from a Northam detention centre.
But then he claimed, “I think there is a leak. Someone has thrown us under the bus.”
Two of the truck drivers were later arrested and convicted, and will be sentenced for their involvement this week.
Another set of texts were unearthed between Hickling and Bryan Anthony Wells, a 54-year-old recently sentenced for his role in the syndicate.
Hickling asked him to buy a prepaid envelope from Australia Post, then wrap $40,000 of cash in some clothing and place it into the envelope, giving him an address in Granville, NSW to send it to.
But police intercepted the package.
“It was the proceeds of drug dealing,” prosecutors told the court.
Days later police raided a storage unit in Welshpool. Hidden inside a large speaker they found 4.4 kilograms of meth linked back to Hickling.
Prosecutors told the court Hickling had a “large established network of people” he sold drugs to and collected from and claim that he “boasted to others about his drug operation”.
In a text message on January 22, a month before his arrest, lawyers told the court Hickling wrote to a colleague stating “It’s cos I’m on the Queen’s property – we’re protected.” He told another that while “they” were trying to “kick [him] out of the country”, he was “pumping it” and claimed “there’s a bit of money to be made for us”.
It was the day before these messages police had already obtained a warrant to intercept his phone interactions.
By then WA Police believed Hickling had connections to the Comancheros bikie gang and in an organised raid, teamed up with Border Force officers and 80 of their own to raid Yongah Hill and place him under arrest.
He was dragged back to Hakea Prison where he has been ever since and where he will remain, with the court hearing he was in for a long term of imprisonment.
“He was on parole at the time for similar offending,” prosecutors argued.
“It demonstrates an ongoing blatant disregard for the law.”
But Hickling’s lawyer tried to argue for leniency, claiming that his client had struggled with drug use after the death of a child 10 years ago which had, for a period of around two years, placed him under suspicion over its death.
Holmes told the court his client had been labelled a “baby killer”, for which he had later been “completely exonerated”.
He also revealed Hickling had once been the victim of a motorcycle accident with doctors later suggesting it may have left him with brain damage.
Hickling will be sentenced on October 8.
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