Former police officer Thomas Booker was a one-stop-shop for cocaine, LSD and cannabis on the Dark Web

A former police officer, traumatised by his work, and sporting a $10k-a-week cocaine habit created his own online drug operation, a court has heard.

A former police officer, putting $10,000 of cocaine up his nose every week, created an “extraordinarily efficient” online marketplace for drugs which exploded during Covid-19, a court has heard.

Tom Booker, 28, pleaded guilty to more than 50 charges of drug trafficking and money laundering relating to running “Underline Cost”, a dark web drug outlet.

Booker served as a police officer for four years before leaving the job in 2018.

Casey Isaacs, for Booker, told District Court Judge Geraldine Davison during sentencing submissions on Monday that his client had witnessed extreme trauma while serving as a police officer, including performing CPR on a dying two-year-old.

Tom Booker has been accused of running a one-stop drug shop.

But it was the death of his wife of eight weeks which drove Booker over the edge.

Mr Isaacs said Booker’s wife had taken her own life shortly after returning from their honeymoon.

She disappeared for several days, prompting a large scale police search, but was found dead only 300m from their home.

An inquiry into her death found text messages from Booker alluding to his use of drugs.

He was fired from the force and, according to Mr Isaacs, lost his wife, his job and his friends and colleagues within the space of a few weeks.

Booker begun using LSD casually while working at a bar but escalated to cocaine and MDMA.

He was purchasing drugs online through dark web vendors when he realised the potential for buying in bulk and on selling to others.

James Watson, prosecuting, said Booker had installed himself as a “one-stop-shop” for LSD, cocaine and cannabis purchases online.

He would purchase from the dark web in bulk and then sell in smaller quantities through the mail.

Mr Isaacs said that by the time Booker was arrested in November 2021 he was snorting $10,000 a week of cocaine.

“The one silver lining of all this is that he probably would have been dead if not for his arrest,” he said.

Mr Watson said Booker had acted with “extraordinary efficiency” in running his business and fulfilled multiple roles from drug importer all the way through to street seller.

Booker’s offending began to come undone when he started communicating online with an undercover police officer.

Detectives were led in turn to a PO Box where Booker was receiving and then sending vast amounts of drugs.

Booker is set to forfeit millions of dollars in assets – including crypto currency, cash, luxury alcohol, a silver ingot and his interest in at least one property.

Sentencing submissions for Booker and his co-accused Ryan Suri-Tucker continue on Tuesday.