By Janet Fife-Yeomans From: The Daily Telegraph June 06, 2008 12:00AM
THEY talked about kids, presents, toys and treasure hunts but what their secret code was hiding was not child's play.
Mark Standen and Bill Jalalaty thought they could hide their true intentions of smuggling drugs behind kiddie talk but it turned out that they were the fools - not the investigators spying on them.
After months of allegedly referring to the pseudoephedrine they were planning to smuggle into Australia as simply "it", earlier this year they became more adventurous.
The drugs became "toys" or "children" and the plotters referred to each other as kids whose happiness ebbed and flowed depending on their confidence in pulling off the multi-million dollar deal.
James Kinch, the men's alleged link to the Netherlands drug syndicate, asked Standen in May this year "how the children were".
He was referring to the second trial shipment of rice which had arrived in Sydney.
Standen told Kinch, known by various nicknames including JoJo, Julie and B52, that the kids were fine.
When Jalalaty became concerned about the time it was taking to clear the rice shipment from the wharves, Standen allegedly sent him an email expressing disappointment that Jalalaty was "pulling out of the big tennis match".
With the "kids getting restless" and not knowing if their suppliers had hidden drugs in the second shipment of rice, Kinch told Jalalaty on May 31 that the "toys" may be wrapped in foil and suggested he get a metal detector and go on a treasure hunt. About 90 minutes later, Kinch was arrested in Bangkok.
On June 2, unaware the clock was ticking down to his own arrest, Jalalaty replied to Kinch saying that his kids loved playing hide and seek and once he had the toys in his hand, he would hide them.
Hours later, he was arrested.
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