Glenn Ashleigh Knowler smuggled more than $100k cash on flight
Rebels bikie associate Glenn Ashleigh Knowler might have gotten away with smuggling more than $100,000 cash on a flight to Sydney if he didn’t make a series of stupid mistakes. The first? Not learning to count properly.
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When Glenn Ashleigh Knowler tried to smuggle more than $100,000 on a flight from Sydney to Perth, he broke every rule in the criminal handbook for getting away with the cash.
Everything from texting his plans to a female friend to acting suspiciously in the airport and even failing to check the amount he was carrying was under the limit for a jail sentence.
It led to the 27-year-old Rebels bikie associate spending six months in jail and becoming a textbook example of how not to commit a crime.
The first rule is to blend in with a crowd so police don’t notice you — but Knowler’s prominent facial tattoos sparked the attention of police in Perth Airport on February 26.
The second rule is to stay calm, or at least try to look unflustered.
But a police fact sheet tendered to Central Local Court on Tuesday said that when they approached Knowler he appeared “very agitated and concerned” when the officers said they “would be searching him and his luggage”.
Knowler’s suitcase containing the cash had already been checked in, the facts said, and was out of reach of the Perth police.
They arranged for it to be intercepted by Sydney counterparts who were now on the lookout for a man with facial tattoos.
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The third rule is not to talk about what you are doing or who you are working for, as police could intercept it and use it as evidence.
For the duration of his flight, Knowler sent text messages to a woman named in the fact sheet as Maddison Bravery, which were intercepted by police and used against him as evidence.
In the texts, Knowler expressed concern that he was going to be arrested and said he was smuggling the money for a person named “Porka”.
“It’s easy money if I don’t get caught,” he wrote in one of the numerous texts.
In another, he wrote: “I’m so nervous Maddie … I think I’m being done when we land.”
When Knowler retrieved his bag containing the cash without being arrested, he gave Ms Bravery a running commentary via text: “I’m safe in the ground!!!! … Now the fun part.”
The fun lasted until the police arrested him at the front door of Sydney Airport and he wrote to Ms Bravery: “I’m gone, they got me.”
Rule number four is, if you do get caught, have a believable and consistent story.
“(I was) raped as a kid and won $60,000 in the court case,” Knowler initially told police.
He changed his story when the police didn’t bite.
“I’ve had a problem with drugs from a young age, so my grandfather put money away. Last week my grandmother gave it to me,” he told the police.
Rule number five: If you must break the law, make sure the pay-off is worth going to jail for.
Knowler was to receive a 2016 Yamaha YZF250 dirt bike worth $5000 and $2000 cash, the facts said.
Lastly, and most importantly, the sixth rule is to have a basic understanding of the laws you are breaking.
The police found $100,050 cash hidden in Knowler’s bag and charged him with dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.
Central Local Court heard on Tuesday that the threshold for a person to be sent to jail on that charge was $100,000, putting Knowler a pineapple over the limit.
Sentencing statistics showed that lesser amounts usually resulted in a slap on the wrist.
The only smart thing Knowler did was hire leading Sydney lawyer Leo Premutico who convinced Magistrate Robert Williams to release him from jail immediately with the six months he had already served counting as his sentence.
Mr Premutico told the court Knowler was simply acting as a courier for a person who “he felt he could not say no to”.
Commonwealth prosecutor Rory Macken disagreed and argued for Knowler to be jailed for longer, telling Magistrate Williams that it was and “objectively serious offence”.
Knowler pleaded guilty to one count of dealing with property suspected as being the instrument of crime.