Police allege a 37-year-old Cooma man spent more than two years evading capture after a raid on his home led to Canberra's second biggest drug seizure in history.
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In September 2016 officers had used a battering ram back to break through a storage cavity under the stairs in Christopher Michael French's Palmerston home.
There, in a safe, police allegedly found more than three kilograms of heroin and methylamphetamine, worth more than $2 million on the street.
But police did not arrest the man, or issue a summons on the spot - a decision Detective Sergeant Mark Steel defended in court on Wednesday as a tactical one made in relation to ongoing investigations.
But earlier this year - more than two years since the raid - Mr French was arrested on unrelated charges in NSW and Canberra police applied for his extradition to the territory.
Mr French appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to charges of trafficking heroin and the drug ice and possessing more than $21,000 in suspected proceeds of crime.
Prosecutors opposed his release on bail, citing fears he would abscond and reoffend.
Prosecutor Anthony Williamson called Sergeant Steel to the stand, who said police had intelligence Mr French had been evading arrest in NSW.
Mr French's defence lawyer Tom Taylor questioned Sergeant Steel, suggesting police had no fear Mr French would abscond because they had not arrested him following the raid.
Police had also seized the man's phone and his car, and that shortly after the raid his landlord locked him out of the property, Mr Taylor said.
He questioned how police would serve the summons in those circumstances.
Sergeant Steel told the court police had made a tactical decision not to arrest the man on the day of the raid.
It was only later, he said, when police had been unable to serve the summons on Mr French that they began to suspect he had gone on the run. A warrant was issued for the man's arrest.
Sergeant Steel said ACT police had intelligence he was in NSW and they had left the matter with their state colleagues.
The offer of a $5000 surety from the man's father and the option to live at a close friend's house was not enough to sway Magistrate Glenn Theakston and he remanded Mr French in custody.
Documents tendered in court allege that during the September 2016 raid police saw the under-stair storage cavity had been covered with timber and recently painted - at odds with the rest of the house.
Police used a battering ram to uncover a hidden safe in the Palmerston house that allegedly contained the 1.5 kilograms of heroin and two kilograms of methamphetamine.
Police said the drugs had a combined street value of more than $2 million.
In 2016, ACT Policing executed more than 50 search warrants and seized more than 5 kilograms of illegal drugs as part of Operation Ronin, which targeted drug trafficking in the ACT.
Detective acting Superintendent Matthew Reynolds said Operation Ronin had seen numerous offenders charged and work had continued over the past two years.
"This arrest and extradition of this man is fair warning to those involved in the illicit supply of drugs that [ACT police] will locate you and bring you before the court,” he said.
Canberra's biggest ever drug seizure was 28 kilograms of methamphetamine in October 2014.
