Chloe Victoria Smith: How Mackay mum went from business owner to inmate
A glamorous lash tech’s love of “tatted criminals with moolah” lured her into the underworld. Now, she’s swapping high-end threads for prison greens. SPECIAL REPORT.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
She traded luxury cars and designer tastes for matching faded prison greens after this glamorous beauty salon owner began helping out her boyfriend’s successful meth trafficking business.
Beautiful, blonde, newly 30 and a sought-after lash technician, Chloe Victoria Smith will spend eight months of her next decade in jail and away from her three children.
It is the reality of her choices that came back to bite her when she was arrested in March 2020 as part of operation Romeo Suitcase, which had been targeting her then boyfriend and father of her youngest child Reece Luscombe.
The past four years have been a flurry of bad boys and brand names and included meeting an inmate over the phone she later told her 16.6k TikTok fans was her “soulmate”.
In the months leading up to her incarceration, Smith posted updates on her life, children and inspirational messages about changing her direction and focus on social media.
“I’m so proud of myself for getting this far. I’ve got to remember to be kind to myself. Nobody in this world is perfect, everybody has hiccups. It’s important not to judge we are all on our own journey,” she wrote.
Smith had played an active role in Luscombe’s meth trafficking; police phone taps and message intercepts captured her as an “enthusiastic assister” in the venture between 2019 and 2020 as she enjoyed the fruits of the profits made, which they expected to total up to $60,000.
A court heard there were discussions about her using the drug money on hair appointments and to pay her credit card, and the couple starting a joint account.
She also encouraged Luscombe’s violence in collecting drug debts “and requested items from his victims” including gold jewellery, lured a debtor to an ambush and took on cash deliveries.
‘A darker side to it’
“For every one of the enthusiastic type assistance there’s my client being degraded, talked to like a piece of rubbish by this man, demands being made of her,” her lawyer told Mackay Supreme Court.
Barrister Martin Longhurst painted a picture of a naive and later broken woman who spiralled into meth use after hooking up with Luscombe, who was also a user and is currently serving time at Lotus Glen Correctional Centre.
Luscombe ultimately pleaded guilty as the main offender, and was jailed for nine years with parole eligibility from August 2023.
He told the court Smith had initially been “blissfully unaware” of Luscombe’s actions and later “wilfully blind”.
“This man provides for everything, he’s got plenty of dough, but doesn’t work. There’s big sums of money in the house, she knows what’s going on,” Justice Graeme Crow said in sentencing Smith to serve eight months of a three-year jail term.
Mr Longhurst went on to say Luscombe was violent to Smith, gaslit her, made derogatory comments and also gave her money to shut up.
“I don’t for a second suggest that she wasn’t enthusiastic about receiving money or spending money,” he said.
Smith would use profits from the drug trafficking on expenses.
“There is a darker side to it, that’s that shadow over her life … there was guns involved, there was people she didn’t want to be around,” Mr Longhurst said.
The court heard Smith began misusing meth and cocaine, and when things in her home life intensified, she relied on ice and Xanax to manage her stress, resulting in an addiction.
“If you have a relationship with someone who’s using methylamphetamine I just don’t see how it comes a surprise that there’s violence,” Justice Graeme Crow said, adding he had never come across a case to the contrary.
“She lives with a fellow that’s got handguns … that goes beating people up for drug debts, she knows he’s violent.”
Drawn to “bad” boys
Even after she was initially charged with serious drug matters including trafficking meth in 2020, when police raided her home and seized a Maserati, 185.932g of pure meth and $108,620 in cash stashed at the property, Smith kept on offending by repeatedly breaching her bail conditions.
While Luscombe sat in jail Smith hooked up with self-named “Mackay’s hottest crim” Liam Dunworth and the pair were arrested in April 2021 after police raided her home while the two were in a bedroom behind a locked door.
Police seized 9.4g of meth and about $15,000 in cash.
Dunworth claimed ownership of the drugs and was jailed for 18 months, cumulative to an earlier jail term, with immediate parole eligibility.
And it seems Smith can’t stay away from the bad boys.
In a post on her social media earlier this year, Smith shared a screenshot of messages with the caption “asking my besties what my type of guy is” and the response “well to sum it up, a tatted criminal with moolah”.
Earlier this year while awaiting her own drug sentencing Smith she met and fell in love with inmate Wade Richard Amey, who she described as her “soulmate” under a TikTok clip of the pair sharing a video call while he served time at Woodford Correctional Centre.
“Say what you want but this man is my soulmate and we were made for each other. I love you so much and can’t wait to be by your side for the rest of my life,” she posted.
Smith even told her followers how the two met in a now deleted post.
“I was actually trying to hook him up with my roommate … I was trying to get him to talk to her and she didn’t want a bar of it,” she said, adding she felt bad and decided to talk to him over the phone because she “didn’t want to be rude”.
“We had one conversation and in that conversation we just clicked … he’s actually the most amazing person that I have ever had the opportunity to talk to.
“He’s so beautiful, he’s everything that I want.”
In February 2023 she posted an update on her Facebook saying the pair had gotten engaged and her social media page still has his name with a lock and key and love heart emojis.
New Zealand-born Amey has since been deported back to his home country.
Two months before she was jailed, Smith closed up The Lash Lounge Mackay CBD shop front after making “an executive decision to move my salon back home”.
Her loyal clientele, who have stayed with her through thick and thin, will now have just under an eight-month wait to book an appointment as she serves out her custodial sentence.
Woman, 22, killed after car explodes into flames in horror head-on
A 22-year-old woman driving a black BMW has died after the vehicle exploded into flames in a head on collision which shut down the Bruce Highway for hours. LATEST
Man accused of violent robbery, break ins arrested
A 41-year-old Whitsunday man has been charged with theft, trespass and breaking and entering after his arrest at a Jubilee Pocket property, with police accusing him of giving them a fake ID.