Suppression lifts on cocaine importing accused
Name suppression has lifted on a 29-year-old Mexican man charged with possession and importing of the class A drug cocaine and he has pleaded not guilty.
Gonzalo Rivera Pavon, a bartender living in Christchurch, denied the charges at a bail application hearing before Judge Stephen O’Driscoll in the Christchurch District Court today.
The judge delayed a decision on bail until he had read the police’s written opposition, and then returned to court later in the morning to announce that bail would be refused.
He remanded Pavon in custody to appear on July 25, with the two alleged co-offenders, in the Manukau District Court in Auckland.
Pavon appeared in court last Monday as one of three arrests in Auckland and Christchurch of people charged with importing the drug after Customs intercepted a diamante encrusted horse’s head sculpture which had been sent from Mexico.
The sculpture allegedly contained 35kg of cocaine worth $14m.
Last Monday, Pavon was granted name suppression for a week to tell his family in Mexico of his arrest. Defence counsel Steve Hembrow accepted that the order lapsed today and did not seek to renew it.
Category: Focus
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