How criminals behind Gold Coast’s biggest drug hauls got caught by police
From cocaine rings to million dollar busts, these are how police caught the criminals behind some of the Gold Coast’s biggest drug hauls.
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DRUGS have become synonymous with the Gold Coast and the city has experienced some of the biggest busts the country has seen, from million-dollar deals to thousands of grams of illegal substances.
Find out some of the criminals behind the most notorious drug busts on the Gold Coast and how they got caught.
In the mid-1980s, cocaine was sweeping through the USA and a director of a Melbourne drug rehabilitation centre suggested the substance had hit the shores of Australia, directly from the Gold Coast.
Mr Joe Lamberti, the director of Melbourne’s Odyssey House, made comments based on clients’ stories that cocaine was being imported mainly from South America to Queensland, particularly the Gold Coast, and was filtering down to the southern states.
“It is an elite drug used by people as a recreational pursuit. That is why it is common on the Gold Coast,’’ he said at the time.
Queensland Police rejected the claims of widespread cocaine trafficking in the state.
Insp. Roy Graves, of the Gold Coast police, said there was no evidence to substantiate claims of an increase in cocaine usage or trafficking on the Gold Coast.
“We have no doubt people are using cocaine on the Coast but it is hard to detect. It seems to be used by a more affluent section of people who keep it to themselves,’’ he said.
Less than a decade later the police had moved from the view that cocaine wasn’t a widespread drug on the Gold Coast to catching hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of drugs.
Jeffery David Chitty
The severity of drugs and in particular cocaine on the Gold Coast came to light when a Newcastle man was caught with a large amount of the substance in the city.
Jeffery David Chitty, 32, pleaded guilty in January 1989 to possessing 120.7g of pure cocaine at Broadbeach Waters, worth almost $250,000, hidden in a gift-wrapped box of chocolates.
He came undone when federal police were searching the premises of an alleged cocaine dealer and Chitty telephoned the unit, according to prosecutor Mr Paul Rutledge.
He was sentenced to seven years’ jail and ordered to serve a minimum of four years.
During the trial Mr Rutledge highlighted the increase in drug activity in Queensland.
He said there had been 17 seizures of cocaine involving 10 people and 2485.9g in 1987. This had risen to 53 seizures involving 35 people and 6395.1 grams in 1988.
Raymond Mark Jacobs
The Gold Coast was a changing scene by the 1990s and one of the biggest drug operations in the city was a sign of things to come as a wider range of hard drugs hit the market.
In October 1996 Raymond Mark Jacobs, the leader of a major drug ring on the Gold Coast, was sentenced to 14 years’ jail.
Prosecutor Ross Martin said Jacobs ran a sophisticated operation dealing in heroin, amphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine, incorporating a smaller operation which distributed drugs in nightclubs.
Mr Martin said a search of Jacobs’s car, shed and apartment revealed drugs (heroin, cocaine, amphetamines), documents, ledgers and invoices for chemicals.
Jacobs was arrested again in December 1994 and again in September 1995.
A total of 26 grams of heroin, 14 grams of cocaine and nine grams of amphetamines were found on him or his property. He also had more than $102,000 in bank accounts he could not properly explain and a further $78,000 in cash was recovered from his associates.
Leslie Ronald Saunders
Drugs had become a big business on the Gold Coast and police were launching major operations to catch the ring leaders.
The 40-year-old led a sophisticated international drug operation which included trafficking methamphetamines and trying to import pseudoephedrine from the Philippines to the Gold Coast.
He was also in charge of supplying large quantities of cocaine, ecstasy, date-rape drug GHB and cannabis.
Crown prosecutor Belinda Merrin said Saunders was arrested during a 2004 Customs, federal and state police drug investigation named Operation Latvia. She said that in February, 2004, through phone taps, police discovered Saunders had about $500,000 worth of ecstasy tablets at a home on the Coast.
Jim Nabhan
Only months after Saunders’ hearing, Jim Nabhan was jailed in January 2007 for 13 years for trafficking, of which he must serve 80 per cent.
The 34-year-old was found to be a major player in some of the state’s largest drug deals that included helping source and deliver millions of dollars of ecstasy, speed, cocaine, ice and fantasy over many months, ending with police raids on the Gold Coast in October, 2002.
Crown prosecutor Brendan Campbell said the case was hard to compare because it involved the largest known drug seizures at the time including 5kg of cocaine with a street value of $3.3 million.
In just three months from July, 2002, police intercepted about 10,000 phone calls to and from Nabhan’s six phones, most about drug deals as part of a National Crime Authority operation focused on major trafficking on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane.
Police seized numerous drugs bound for the Gold Coast market including 14,000 ecstasy pills and almost 1kg of high grade crystal methamphetamine or ice.
Glen Christopher Cook and Eskil Honore Gundersen
Later the same year in June, New Zealander Glen Christopher Cook, 31, was given a head sentence of almost nine years’ jail and Norwegian-born Eskil Honore Gundersen, 25, received a sentence of seven years’ jail.
Cook also pleaded guilty to possession of a commercial quantity of gamma butyrolactone (GBL or liquid ecstasy).
The court was told Customs officers intercepted a package containing almost 3kg of cocaine with a street value of about $1.6 million on March 10, 2006, which they substituted with an inert substance.
Joshua Thornbury
Almost a decade later and Parkwood man Joshua Thornbury made headlines for a series of drug and stolen property cases that landed him in prison for 10 years.
The charges included two counts of trafficking drugs, one count of drug possession and one count of possession of property obtained by drug trafficking.
In a separate case months later, he admitted to being a serial hoarder of stolen goods when he pleaded guilty to 146 charges in 2017.
The charges ranged from corruption of a motor registry staffer to trafficking cannabis on flights to Melbourne and stealing and receiving stolen property.
He came undone in 2014 when police raided his two homes in Parkwood and Gunaba and he was caught bragging about his stealing sprees on the phone.
Martin Mayers and Jordan Antic
In 2018, Martin Mayers and Jordan Antic pleaded guilty for their “Miami Vice-style” operation, which involved smuggling pure cocaine from South America to the Gold Coast via a luxury yacht.
Both were convicted in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.
The haul had arrived at the Coomera Marina from Ecuador via Vanuatu on a 13m yacht named The Sola.
UK citizen Mayers was sentenced to 20 years jail after he was found guilty of importing 66.5kg of pure cocaine split among 94 blocks.
Antic was jailed for 12 years for attempting to possess 29kg of the drug.
Jack Stuart Jones
In recent times, the Benowa 22-year-old pleaded guilty to knowingly directing activities of a criminal group on October 25.
The charges Jack Stuart Jones pleaded guilty to relate to 15 drug deals between October 1 and November 18 last year.
Jones faced the Tweed Heads Local Court court via video link.
He faces up to 15 years behind bars but his sentence is yet to be handed out.
The cocaine ring came to police attention when Jones’ sister – who has not been charged with any related offence – and other associates were in a car police pulled over on April 10, 2020.
Police found four bags containing what was believed to be cocaine and cash.
Following the incident, police formed a strike force who conducted physical and electronic surveillance of the group including intercepting about 34,000 phone activations throughout the investigation.
Those intercepts revealed to police that Jones had established a criminal group involving others, who have either been before the courts or will face trial at a later date.
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