A former associate of the Rebels bikie gang has been found guilty of secretly dumping 73,000 tonnes of asbestos waste in Sydney’s north-west after one of the biggest pollution stings in the history of the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
Andrew Hughes and his company Ant Civil Pty Ltd are facing penalties of up to $4.2 million for creating a massive unlicensed waste dump at Wheeny Creek in the Hawkesbury region.
The Herald had previously revealed that thousands of truckloads of construction waste were taken to the property between September 2020 and June 2022 and spread out across much of the 26-hectare lot, raising the height of the land by several metres.
What Hughes did not know was that the bush track that led to his property was being watched by cameras, drones and EPA officers.
A covert surveillance camera in a tree captured 661 truck movements in one five-week period between March and April 2021.
The surveillance footage, coupled with thousands of text and WhatsApp messages seized in a raid on Hughes’ home in June 2022, helped secure convictions on six charges related to pollution in the NSW Land and Environment Court this week.
“We are pleased the court agreed with our assertion that the defendants were using the Wheeny Creek property as an unlawful tip or waste facility,” an EPA spokesperson said.
“By knowingly transporting and spreading asbestos contaminated fill, the defendants caused significant land pollution and also failed to comply with our legal directions to clean up and remediate the site.”
The site has not been cleaned up. Hughes sold the property – which he had bought for $510,000 in 2019 – for $50,000 in November 2024.
The current owner, demolition contractor Samuel Mitchell, did some remedial works including collecting over a tonne of asbestos-contaminated fragments from the surface, and built a supporting wall that aims to stop contaminated sediment flowing downhill from the dumpsite into an ecologically significant wetland.
The material dumped at the site is legally classified as asbestos waste because it contains asbestos mixed with other substances.
A technical report used as evidence by the EPA said that, as well as asbestos, samples from the site had “varying quantities of foreign materials that were generally consistent with construction and demolition waste including terracotta and ceramic tile fragments, crushed concrete and bricks, plastic, timber, particle board and masonite, glass, polystyrene, PVC and metallic debris”.
Hughes, who now lives in South-East Asia, had earlier argued he could not afford to return to Australia to give evidence in court because he feared for his life and his presence in Sydney would require a 12-man security team at a cost of $500,000.
Affidavits filed by Hughes’ lawyer Zali Burrows during the case included a report from a psychiatrist who is the uncle of Hughes’ wife.
The psychiatrists’ report said Hughes was anxious and suffered from a depressive illness because of the inadvertent disclosure of his name in an interview transcript which had formed part of a separate investigation into a 2016 murder that was unrelated to the Wheeny Creek case.
While Hughes did not give evidence at that murder trial, his name was unredacted in a transcript given to the lawyer of one of the five men who were ultimately found guilty, the court heard.
Burrows said Hughes had said there was a “$400,000 contract out to murder him” and that, during a return visit to Sydney in January 2025, he had been violently bashed up in a carpark in Greystanes.
It was also claimed that after the EPA began its investigation into illegal dumping and issued clean-up notices to Hughes that he “received numerous calls from silent numbers and unknown persons seeking to meet up with him in secluded locations”.
As well as the $500,000 cost of a security detail, Hughes said returning to Sydney would require $15,000 in return flights, $33,000 in accommodation and $3700 for a nanny.
Justice Beasley was unpersuaded by Hughes’ reasoning and did not allow him to give evidence by audio-visual link.
The company ANT Civil Pty Ltd was found guilty of causing building and asbestos waste to be transported to the property.
Beasley said Hughes was found to have control of Ant Civil Pty Ltd and was responsible for its actions despite the business being registered under his wife’s name.
He was also found guilty two charges of causing the property and access road to be polluted with asbestos waste, one charge of using the property as a waste facility without lawful authority, and of failing to comply with a clean-up notice.
A date for sentencing is due to be set at a hearing on August 14.
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