by According to the agreed facts, Ward set up PO Boxes and received drug consignments under multiple aliases. He imported 1.65kg of MDMA, 1.9kg of amphetamines, 88,308 tabs of LSD, 17.6g of oxycodone tablets and 66.69g of cocaine.
Once the packages were collected, Ward delivered them to Shanese Koullias … [in] Callala Bay where they were stored and packaged to be on-sold, the facts state.
Between December 2015 and January 2019, under the dealer name NSWGreat, Ward made more than 10,500 prohibited drug transactions via cryptocurrency and the Dream Market marketplace on the dark web – invisible to search engines and accessed via a special browser.
In the months after he was interviewed for a news article in August 2018, in which Ward claimed he was confident he would stay anonymous, Australian Border Force officers seized parcels arriving in Sydney addressed to his aliases and police made controlled drug purchases from NSWGreat.
The imported drugs were compared to drugs seized in raids on Ward and his accomplices, revealing identical purity readings, textures and appearance, the facts state.
Judge Tupman accepted Ward was the primary operator of NSW Great and employed Shanese Koullias to store, package and deliver prohibited drug orders through the post. The 24-year-old, who was paid in regular cash payments, recruited her 22-year-old sister Patricia Koullias, without Wards knowledge, to assist with packaging.
The sisters have been sentenced for drug supply offences. Patricia was to be released on parole last December while Shanese, serving a maximum eight years imprisonment, is first eligible for parole in February 2024.
Ward has been in custody since his arrest. He spent time in isolation after a blade was pulled on him in an extortion attempt by inmates under the misapprehension he or his family were extremely rich, the judge said.
Ward took photographs next to expensive sports cars and bought himself a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz but the Maserati seized at the time of his arrest was not registered and a statutory write-off bought for $7000.
In a statement to the Herald, his family said they of course do not condone Codys actions.
We were shocked and devastated when he was arrested, the family said on Friday. Despite this, however, we still love Cody and will continue to support him throughout the remainder of his sentence. We hope more than anything that we live long enough to see him again outside of prison.
The court previously heard Ward has a close and honest relationship with his parents but his father is sick and elderly.
By the time he is released from custody, it is possible that his father may have succumbed to his illness, Judge Tupman said. That is obviously a matter of some sadness to him [and] a reality he will face.
Wards 10-year non-parole period expires in February 2029.
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