Brisbane house flipper’s alleged secret life as drug trafficker

From private school in Brisbane’s northern suburbs to chippie, police now allege this husband, father and million-dollar house flipper has been living a secret life as a high-level wholesale drug trafficker.

A million-dollar Brisbane house flipper who has virtually no online presence is alleged by police to have been living a secret life as a high-level wholesale drug trafficker.

Christopher John Spurling, 33, from Wilston, told his Supreme Court bail hearing last month that he graduated from Marist College Ashgrove in 2005 and immediately began an apprenticeship as carpenter with Komodo building.

By age 21, he completed his apprenticeship and worked as an employed carpenter for many years before he qualified as a builder and started his own business CS Build and began renovating and selling houses for profit.

Last year the father of one flipped a mansion in Alderley, in Brisbane’s inner-north, selling the freshly renovated historic Royal Pde home for $2.45m having purchased it for $805,000 four years earlier, the court heard.

CS build employed up to four fully qualified carpenters, and the last project they completed was a high end home in Paddington late last year before Spurling took paternity leave for his first child, the court heard.

By the time of his arrest on June 7 he had $1.4m in his bank account and was driving both a Range Rover and a VW Amarok ute.

Spurling was born in Adelaide but has lived in Queensland most of his life.

He is the second youngest of five siblings, and has a close relationship with his father William John Spurling,78, who lives in Bli Bli, and his mother Cleonne Faye Spurling, 76, from Mt Coolum.

Eldest sibling Louise Mary McVerry, 41, a mother of two from Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast has put up the family home she shares with husband Tom, a former Queensland Reds rugby player, as surety for her brother’s release.

Spurling was granted bail on June 22.

Brisbane lawyer Sophie Snape.

He has been in a relationship with his fiancee Sophie since he was in Year 10 of high school at Marist College in Ashgrove in 2003.

They became engaged in October 2020 and had a daughter in December.

“Sophie is a qualified lawyer. She is currently on maternity leave and is due to return to work full time in November 2021,” Spurling’s lawyer told the court in an affidavit.

The state’s roll of solicitors reveals that Ms Snape works for top law firm Gadens.

While on bail Spurling and his fiancee will live in Albany Creek with Sophie’s father Damian Snape.

Prior to his arrest, the couple were living in a $1.5m four bedroom rental home in Dover St in leafy Wilston, in Brisbane’s inner north.

They had been renting this property since December last year when they moved from a rental in New Farm seeking more room for their new baby.