Court hears Jamie Gao’s ambition to ‘get rich’ ended when he crossed paths with Roger Rogerson

WHEN would-be drug dealer Jamie Gao met Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara to hand over 3kg of the drug ice, he thought he’d become “very rich”.

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WHEN would-be drug dealer and student Jamie Gao met Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara in a storage unit to hand over three kilos of the drug ice, he thought he was about to be “very rich”.

Instead, they shot him dead and unceremoniously dumped his body in the ocean, a jury heard yesterday.

Glen McNamara leaves King Street Supreme Court minus shoes after the jury heard the opening addresses. Picture: Adam Taylor

Roger Rogerson leaving King Street Supreme Court not wearing handcuffs. Picture: Adam Taylor

Rogerson, 75, and McNamara, 56, have pleaded not guilty to murdering the 20-year-old in Padstow on May 20, 2014, as well as taking part in the supply of a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.

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The Supreme Court heard Gao boasted to his cousin that he was working on a drug deal that “was going to be massive”.

In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Christopher Maxwell QC said Gao was captured on CCTV at 1.45pm on the day he died entering the storage unit, alleging he was carrying 2.78kg of ice at the time.

The body of 20-year-old Jamie Gao was found floating in the sea off Cronulla.

Just before 2.20pm, the same footage shows Rogerson and McNamara removing a silver surfboard bag and placing it in the boot of a white station wagon.

“He went to that ... storage shed with the expectation that what was going to happen there was going to make him very rich,” Mr Maxwell said. “Instead he was shot and killed, dragged to the station wagon and dumped at sea.

“The Crown case is obvious and clear. The body of Jamie Gao was inside that surfboard cover.”

Gao’s body was found floating off Cronulla six days later, inside a surfboard cover but also wrapped in a blue tarpaulin.

Glen McNamara wrote a book about police corruption in Kings Cross.

Roger Rogerson is arrested at his home in Padstow in May 2014. Picture: AAP

The jury heard a post mortem revealed Gao had suffered two gunshot wounds to the chest and that the ice was found inside the same white station wagon, which had been parked at McNamara’s Cronulla apartment.

Mr Maxwell told the jury they did not have to identify which of the men was the shooter to find either or both of them guilty of murder, saying it needs to establish “that there was an agreement that Jamie Gao would be killed or at least seriously injured”.