Role-play led to Serbian hotel arrest for fake 'heavy'

The shipping container and its illicit, hidden contents were detected by authorities at Sydney's Port Botany almost a year earlier.

The police also knew it was likely a person would be sent to play the role of a senior syndicate figure in Serbia according to a situation report months earlier, Tristan Waters' barrister David Dalton SC said on Wednesday.

While David Campbell, 53, waited outside with a gun, Waters, 40, met with undercover police at a hotel in the Serbian capital Belgrade, along with a third Australian man, Rohan Arnold, in January 2018.

All three were arrested and eventually extradited back to Australia, where Waters and Campbell are facing trial.

Campbell has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to import and possess a border controlled drug.

Waters has pleaded guilty to the possession charge.

However, he had nothing to do with the plan to import the drugs, becoming involved at a late stage and only playing the role of a "heavy" or troubleshooter in the Serbian meeting, Mr Dalton told the NSW District Court jury.

He bolstered his "heavy" image by lying about getting stabbed with a screwdriver to explain ailments due to Crohn's disease, among other lies he told when he attended the meeting, Mr Dalton said.

He was not the only one telling lies.

"We all know the undercover police officers weren't telling the truth, they were playing roles as well," Mr Dalton said.

"Everyone was playing roles in the course of that meeting."

While Waters pretended to be a high-ranking syndicate figure, Arnold pretended to be taking orders from him rather than being in charge himself, Mr Dalton said.

The lies he told meant the jury couldn't put much reliance on other things Waters said at the meeting, Mr Dalton said.

Crown prosecutor Sean Flood earlier sought to characterise Waters' claims in the meeting as a confession to being a principal figure in a drug syndicate.

Campbell and Arnold previously leased a property owned by Waters' wife, who attended court alongside his father on Wednesday, but Mr Dalton told the jury that link only prompts suspicion and speculation and does not support the accusation against him.

Waters became involved at a late stage, to troubleshoot issues in an attempt to possess the drugs, which he has admitted, Mr Dalton told the jury.

He had nothing to do with the importation attempt leading to his arrest in Serbia at the end of a globe-trotting undercover police operation.

Evidence of Waters becoming involved appears on his phone, rather than a secretive communication device later used, a week after the attempt to possess the drugs allegedly began in October 2017, Mr Dalton said.

In the vast surveillance of Arnold and Campbell, Waters does not appear until a "benign" meeting in Prague in December 2017.

Campbell told the court he had not met Waters until arriving in Serbia, which was not challenged by prosecutors.

The real principals would not have shown up to the meeting, because they suspected the purported criminals they were dealing with would rip them off, or, more accurately, suspected they were actually police, Mr Dalton said.