Clarke Rogers: Death results in drug charges being withdrawn

Police have withdrawn serious charges against a Sydney man accused of importing a substantial amount of illicit drugs for alleged associates arrested in the An0m sting following his shock death.

Police have withdrawn serious drug importation charges against a Sydney man following his sudden, shock death.

Clarke Rogers, 36, was charged with two counts of aiding or abetting an attempt to import a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs and reckless risk as an instrument of crime.

The charges were subsequently withdrawn on May 10 before Magistrate Scott Nash at Downing Centre Local Court because Rogers has recently died.

The court had previously heard Rogers, from Kogarah, was allegedly embroiled in an inside job to import a huge amount of methamphetamine into Sydney through Port Botany – though a magistrate described the case against him as “not strong”.

At a bail application in 2021, the court heard a number of people allegedly involved in a criminal enterprise intending to import prohibited drugs into Australis were apprehended in the An0m sting.

Shipping containers sit along Port Botany. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Australian Federal Police and the FBI allege they infiltrated An0m – a purportedly encrypted messaging app – and observed as scores of alleged criminal offenders arranged various crimes before pouncing.

The court heard Rogers was not alleged to be an An0m user – but was instead alleged to have used a Cipher phone to communicate with employees at the Port Botany container examination facility about the allegedly planned drug importations.

Rogers – a then former employee of the container examination facility – was alleged to have acted as a “go-between” for the principal alleged offenders, who police say were trying to import a significant quantity of methamphetamine.

Magistrate Clare Farnan said at the time police would allege listening devices caught Rogers whispering some numbers, which were the same as those on the shipping containers of interest to the AFP.

The matter has now been dismissed from the court.