The Grounds implicated in drugs scandal
The Grounds co-owner Ramzey Choker has been named in a Sydney drug scandal.
First, it has to be said that Mr Choker has never been charged and has refused to give a statement to police.
The claim has been made by someone identified only as Mr X, one of Sydney’s most prolific dealers of cocaine and heroin, a man who claims to be one of Mr Choker’s best mates.
For his part, Mr Choker says the story has been fabricated.
But police evidence detailed in phone taps and court transcripts as reported in the Sunday Telegraph highlight a murky world where Mr X has claimed that Mr Choker is holding a large amount of illegally earned money as a favour for him. Mr X has claimed in court that Mr Choker helped him go on the run, first in hotels and then in his apartment.
According to the police evidence, Mr X had been running his drug operation from a serviced apartment block near Sydney’s CBD and involved hiding drugs and weapons inside vacant units with the help of a friendly desk clerk.
Moving the money around and getting it into the right place was critical and Mr X told the court he had relied on Mr Choker to “invest” about $300,000 of his illegally earned cash in a restaurant and delivered what was left of the money to his parents.
He also told the court Mr Choker had helped hide him while he was on the run from police.
Mr Choker has gone on the public record, telling the media how he had built his restaurant and coffee empire the hard way in the face of adversity.
But Mr X, who claimed he had known Mr Choker since about 2002 and had described the restaurateur as “one of my closest friends”, had told the court he had invested between $200,000 and $300,000 with Mr Choker in 2008 or 2009, around the time he was opening Bacco in Sydney’s CBD.
The money was from the drug trade.
Mr X is now spilling his guts after being charged with commercial drug supply and possessing guns and explosives.
In exchange, for a lighter sentence, he is providing police with information about one of Sydney’s most notorious unsolved crimes involving more than $6 million cash that was stolen from armoured cash-in-transit trucks in 2009 by a gang of robbers who used stolen sports cars to make six raids across Sydney. Only $500,000 of that money was ever recovered.
And in doing so, he is throwing his “friend” Mr Choker under a bus.
Mr Choker refused to be interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph but his public relations spokeswoman issued a statement denying the claims and evidence.
“The information is incorrect and (Mr Choker) has no comment at all,” the spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that the three business running The Grounds - The Grounds of Alexandria, The Grounds of Alexandria Retail and TGOA Tradi – had clocked up $1.7 million in debt since 2014.
Mr Choker is listed as a director of all three companies.
The records show the Australian Taxation Office is the largest creditor with the three companies owing it a combined $1.3 million.
by Leon Gettler, January 16th 2017
