Men denied bail in alleged LSD plot
Author: Les Kennedy
Date: 05/05/2006
COLOUR photocopy prints of the board game Battle Ship were to be used to distribute $3.5 million worth of the hallucinogenic drug LSD. A Sydney court heard yesterday that Australian Federal Police foiled an alleged plan to manufacture and distribute up to 350,000 paper tablets, or microdots, of LSD.
Federal police agents monitored the movements of a Spanish tourist Eduardo De Lucas, 27, after he arrived in Sydney on a Cathay Pacific flight from Madrid on April 7.
The surveillance operation, which included phone taps, led them from De Lucas's room at the Hotel Ibis, World Square, Pitt Street, to the Baulkham Hills home of Frank Marracos, 28, on Tuesday.
The alleged LSD plot was described in a statement presented to the Central Local Court when both men made separate appearances before the magistrate Allan Moore. Both men have been charged with trafficking in LSD.
Marracos, 28, the proprietor of an Italian restaurant in Parramatta, who also listed a second residential address in Granville, was also charged with possession of an unlicensed Colt semi-automatic pistol found in his car.
A raid on his home allegedly uncovered liquid LSD in a bottle of vodka, and six tablets of ecstasy. Police also allegedly found weighing scales, a colour photocopier and a box of A4 paper, each sheet with the Battle Ship game grid copied onto it. When tested, the paper was allegedly found to be impregnated with LSD.
Police alleged they had monitored a series of meetings in the city between the two men, and phone calls between them and a third man in which the production of LSD was spoken of in coded words, allegedly under the guidance of De Lucas, for a $70,000 payment.
Five perfume phials that tested positive for LSD, a colour printer and three sheets of A4 paper depicting the Battle Ship game were allegedly seized in a Tuesday's raid on De Lucas's hotel room.
De Lucas, who gave his Sydney address as the Spanish consulate, was refused bail. He will appear before the court on July 12.
Marracos's barrister, Peter Givorshner, demanded more detailed tests of the chemicals, which he said would establish his client's innocence. He said police "did not have positive proof" that the chemical detected was LSD because it fell within a common group of drugs "found in a wide variety of pharmaceutical drugs, including migraine tablets".
The magistrate also refused Marracos bail and ordered him to appear before him on Wednesday, when the chemical analysis results will be known.
