But prosecutors say he might be confused about what led to his conviction.

Madafferi was jailed for a decade in 2014 on a single charge of trafficking 57,000 ecstasy pills worth almost $450,000 a few years earlier.

The drugs were imported in a larger shipment by notorious crime figure Pasquale Barbaro in 2008, months after police uncovered the infamous 15-million-pill, tomato tin shipment.

A number of people tied to the tomato tin import are now appealing their convictions after it was revealed Ms Gobbo, the criminal barrister turned police informer, had provided a key piece of evidence to help police uncover the $122 million drug stash.

Commonwealth prosecutors have suggested Madafferi might have been misunderstood about a connection between the two investigations.

"It appears it's all connected when it's not," Lincoln Crowley QC told Victoria's Court of Appeal on Monday.

The two imports were part of two completely separate police investigations, he said.

But Madafferi's lawyer, Catherine Boston, said there was a clear connection between the two.

She said after the first shipment was seized by authorities, the European drug suppliers sent a further shipment of drugs - those Madafferi is convicted of trafficking.

It's not clear the extent to which information gathered in the tomato tins investigation was used to obtain warrants for the phone recordings or police surveillance used against him, she said.

The court ordered on Monday that Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police hand over relevant documents by mid-June.

Six appeals are currently underway in relation to Ms Gobbo, including by tomato tin importers Rob Karam, Jan Visser and Saverio Zirilli.

Barbaro, who is serving a life sentence for the import, is also thought to be working on an appeal.

Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel has had an appeal underway for several years.

Australian Associated Press