A jury has been shown the moment heavily armed police stormed a shed in Bungendore to arrest two business partners, who had just exchanged a fist bump during what prosecutors allege was an attempt to retrieve nearly 300kg of imported cocaine.
One of the men, Queanbeyan resident Timothy John Engstrom, is standing trial in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court after pleading not guilty to a federal drugs charge.
The 38-year-old denies an allegation he, in concert with business partner Adam Phillip Hunter, 37, attempted to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
There is no dispute that an excavator delivered to Bungendore Landscape Supplies, a business the pair owned, had about 276kg of pure cocaine hidden inside it when it arrived in Australia from South Africa.
Police substituted the drugs for an inert substance before installing a surveillance device on the excavator and sending it to the business, inside which officers also placed hidden cameras, in July 2019.
On Friday, prosecutor Adam McGrath played for the jury a series of clips captured by the surveillance devices.
The videos showed Engstrom standing on some scaffolding and using an angle grinder to cut into the arm of the excavator, from which police had earlier removed the cocaine.
Engstrom and Hunter exchanged a fist bump before the latter took his place on the scaffolding and reached into the excavator, from which he removed several packages.
The sound of sirens could eventually be heard in the distance and Hunter, who had been placing the packages into a black tub, leapt off the scaffolding as police entered.
The jury was later shown a bodycam video that depicted heavily armed officers from the Australian Federal Police tactical response team using their own angle grinder to force their way into the Bungendore Landscape Supplies shed and arrest the pair.
Engstrom's counsel has told the court his client denies either knowing the excavator had contained a border-controlled drug, or being reckless about that fact, prior to his arrest.
Mr McGrath, on the other hand, alleges Engstrom had to have either known or been reckless by the day in question, when he had cut open the excavator and "continued to help Mr Hunter" by putting the tub onto the scaffolding.
In his opening address on Tuesday, the prosecutor suggested jurors may find Engstrom had known or been reckless about what was inside the digger at an earlier stage.
The trial, before the jury and Judge Gina O'Rourke SC, is set to continue next week.
