Triad link: Roger Rogerson allegedly executed Jamie Gao for crime syndicate

ROGER Rogerson executed student Jamie Gao for a Triad crime syndicate because they believed the 20-year-old was an informant, a senior legal source has told The Daily Telegraph.

• Richard Roxburgh triggers Roger Rogerson double take
• Part One: Meetings with Mr Big to trade secrets
• Part Two: Rogerson makes a deal with the devil
• Part Three: ‘You tricked me. This is an ambush’
• Part Four: The good cop caught in the line of fire

ROGER Rogerson executed student Jamie Gao for a Triad crime syndicate because they believed the 20-year-old was an informant, a senior legal source has told The Daily Telegraph.

Payment for the killing was to be that Rogerson and McNamara could keep the drugs.

An associate of Gao’s was known to have been to the Australian Crime Commission weeks before his murder and powerful members in the ­Triads believed that Gao was about to co-operate with ­the commission.

Roger Rogerson’s motive may have been more complex than a drug rip-off. Picture: AAP

“They were not just ripping off Gao, they were ripping off the Triads and you don’t do that and live,’’ the source said.

“The fact that no one came after them for the drugs after Gao went missing gives a lot of weight to the theory.

“And there were rumours he had been to the commission as well, although that was never verified.’’

Murder victim Jamie Gao.

Gao travelled to Hong Kong with two Triad members and met a higher-ranking member of the Asian crime gang. It’s understood Gao asked for 10kg of methamphetamine, a request that was ­rejected before the gang agreed to give him 3kg.

NSW police said they would not comment about the ­possibility that Gao’s killing was a paid hit and not just a drug rip-off.

The Telegraph can also ­reveal that Rogerson and McNamara visited Cooma jail several times to see convicted baggage handler and cocaine smuggler Shayne Hatfield, who shared a cell with former boxer Lucky Gattellari.

Hatfield was an associate of one of Sydney’s best-known crooks, Michael Hurley, who was also convicted of smuggling cocaine in the same operation. Hurley and Rogerson were well known to each other.

On Wednesday Rogerson and McNamara were found guilty of Gao’s May 2014 ­murder in unanimous verdicts.

One of the men shot the 20-year-old in a Padstow storage container before the two ­former detectives later dumped his body at sea.

During the trial both ­offered differing accounts of the event, each blaming the other for the killing.

It is understood that Rogerson spent nearly $1 million on his defence and had to sell a beloved holiday house at Long Jetty on the Central Coast to pay his lawyers.