Operation Ironside target Ashley Rake granted $2 million bail

A Comanchero associate facing commercial drug dealing charges involving cocaine and ice has been freed on a $2 million surety and will pay for his own electronic monitoring bracelet.

One of the targets of Operation Ironside, the country’s biggest underworld investigation, is the latest high-profile accused to be granted bail.

Comanchero associate Ashley Rake, 35, was on Thursday freed on a $2 million surety despite Supreme Court Justice Stephen Campbell admitting that nothing could stop anyone determined enough to skip bail.

“Bail is not entirely risk free,” the judge said.

Rake, who faces commercial drug dealing charges involving cocaine and ice, will pay for his own electronic monitoring bracelet, identical to the one which alleged drug trafficker Mostafa Baluch cut off his ankle before going on the run last month. He is now back behind bars on remand.

Rake was caught as part of the ANOM sting, the joint operation by Australian Federal Police, the FBI and the Canadian Mounted Police which lured crime gangs and drug cartels around the world into using the ANOM app which they thought was encrypted but was being monitored by law enforcement.

The Lamborghini supercar seized from Ashley Rake, who has been released on bail. Picture: Supplied NSW Police Force

Rake’s girlfriend Josephine Matta will collect him from Parklea’s maximum security jail and take him back to the ritzy Vaucluse unit they own which the prosecution allege demonstrates his “unexplained wealth” but the defence claims is all financed.

Ms Matta and Rake’s wealthy mother-in-law, Veronica Matta, have pledged the $2 million bail.

There is no suggestion Ms Matta or her mother are involved in any criminal activity.

Justice Campbell said Baluch was not the only person released on bail to tamper with their security bracelet, just the most recent.

“He is not the only one, just the most notorious,” Justice Campbell said.

A Rolex watch allegedly seized from Ashley Rake. Picture: Supplied NSW Police Force

“What the (Baluch) case demonstrates is that a determined person will not be deterred from any condition that can be imposed from attempting to make good their escape.”

The judge said Rake’s charges were “show cause” offences where he had to persuade the judge that his detention was not justified.

Justice Campbell said although the allegations were serious, the Crown case was entirely circumstantial and based on electronic surveillance of encrypted devices. There was no evidence that Rake actually supplied the drugs.

However he said there was some evidence that would infer the amounts including a photograph of what the prosecution alleges is a block of cocaine.

The judge said there was also a “flavour” of unexplained wealth.

Police found a Lamborgini in the garage of Rake’s unit and a Rolex watch was among an alleged $430,000 worth of watches found in the unit. Rake’s defence said on Thursday the watches were only worth $139,000 and the car was on finance.

Rake is also facing fraud charges involving allegstions of using fake details to obtain finance and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

While he is a carpenter, the judge said he was “not going hammer and chisel” at it based on the length of time it was taking him to built a granny flat in one of his mother-in-law’s investment properties.

Justice Campbell said that if Rake was convicted, the sentence was likely to be substantial “and there is going to be the risk of flight rather than the inclination to face the music”.

But he said Rake was a “cleanskin” with only a driving conviction, it would take a long time for the case to get to trial and the $2 surety “could not be ignored”.

In an unrelated matter, Baluch’s family stand to lose the $4 million home they put up as surety for his bail. No decision has yet been made.

The same security company which fitted Baluch’s monitoring bracelet, Attenti, had told the court that the Baluch case showed their devices worked because they alerted police within eight minutes if the bracket being removed.

Rake is not allowed to associate with any bikies and must report daily to Rose Bay police.

He is due to face Waverley Local Court in January.