A man jailed after one the world's biggest ecstasy hauls was found in tomato tins shipped to Melbourne, has lost a bid to appeal.
More than 15 million ecstasy tablets packed in 3000 cans were discovered by customs officers in 2007 after they were shipped to Melbourne from Italy.
John Higgs was sentenced to a minimum 14 years in prison for his role in the scam - classed at the time as the world's largest ecstasy seizure by police.
Higgs ferried information and facilitated meetings between convicted drug mule Rob Karam and others such as mafia boss Pasquale Barbaro.
On Wednesday he lost a bid to appeal his conviction and sentence.
He had claimed the trial judge failed to direct the jury properly, but the Victorian Court of Appeal found that wasn't the case.
The appeal court also said the case against Higgs was very strong.
"It seems clear from the evidence that the applicant made himself available to (the others involved) at all hours of the day and night, and spent days awaiting instructions," the Court of Appeal found.
"It is fair to say that he devoted a deal of energy to his dealings with those individuals, in circumstances where it was plain that he knew that a team was involved in a joint enterprise of a commercial nature."
The ecstasy haul weighed 4.4 tonnes and had an estimated street value of $440 million, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has said.
Higgs was sentenced in 2013 to 18 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 14 years.
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