Tharbogang men Pasquale Barbaro and Saverio Zirilli have appealed their sentences for smuggling narcotics into Australia in tomato tins.
GRIFFITH drug barons Pasquale Barbaro and Saverio Zirilli have launched an audacious bid to have their prison sentences reduced over their roles in a massive 2008 ecstasy importation.
The pair’s legal teams have lodged appeals against the severity of the sentences handed down by the Victorian Supreme Court in January – life with a minimum of 30 years for Barbaro and 26 years with a minimum of 18 for Zirilli – and have been granted a hearing on August 23.
A full bench of three judges in the Victorian Court of Appeal will rule on the fate of the Tharbogang pair, who were convicted of trafficking a commercial quantity of MDMA, conspiring to traffick a commercial quantity of MDMA and attempting to possess a commercial quantity of cocaine.
The charges relate to the seizure of 15 million ecstasy tablets – shipped from Italy to Melbourne ports in 2008 and secreted in tomato tins – and more than 100 kilograms of cocaine.
The pair, along with three other local men, were among 23 arrested nationwide over the $600 million haul, at the time the largest ecstasy seizure in history.
One of the other local co-accused, Pasquale “Poppy” Sergi, will have his pre-sentence hearing today after being found guilty by a jury in May over charges of intending to possess a commercial quantity of ecstasy.
The hearing will be conducted in front of trial judge Justice Betty King at the Victorian Supreme Court.