Gold Coast drug kingpin gives secret evidence on supercar sale

A GOLD Coast drug kingpin known as “Shady” has taken a day out from his 10-year jail sentence after being summonsed to explain how he came to sell a Lamborghini.

A Facebook image of Terrence John Thornbury

THE kingpin of a Gold Coast drug cartel who is serving a decade behind bars for directing the smuggling of 2.8 tonnes of cannabis worth $30 million into Queensland is on a day out from prison, giving secret evidence in a Brisbane court.

Terrence John Thornbury, 40, known to friends as “Shady”, was forced to appear in Brisbane Supreme Court after lawyers for the State Government summonsed him for an explanation of how he came to sell a $240,000 Lamborghini.

But the court was closed after barrister Jeffrey Rolls, acting for the state of Queensland, asked for the case to be held in private.

Thornbury, who ran “Smick Car Sales” while he was trafficking in cannabis, has previously told the court he brokered the sale of the car to cannabis kingpin Justin Corke.

Thornbury is serving his sentence at the low-security Palen Creek Correctional Centre at Rathdowney, south of Brisbane.

Terrence John Thornbury at a previous court appearance

The court was shown a “dealer’s receipt” signed by Thornbury, a licensed car dealer, dated June 9, 2010.

Corke is also set to be examined in court about the car, which he claims is his, arguing he bought it from Thornbury in late May or early June 2010.

The car was seized by the state of Queensland under proceeds-of-crime laws after it was found during a police raid of Corke’s Pimpama home.

Russian-born Gold Coast accountant Nelli Gennad’evna Erchova, 50, from Helensvale, is also claiming the 1991 black Lamborghini Diablo, with Queensland registration DIABLO, is hers.

Erchova, also known as Nelli Robertson, claims the car was a gift to her from her de facto partner Rick Mayne, a deceased Gold Coast corporate spiv.

Erchova told the court she was given the car on July 7, 2008, her 40th birthday, but it went missing or was stolen from Mayne’s Southport workshop between July 10 and July 17, 2010.

She says she did not believe that Mayne would sell the car without her knowledge.

Erchova did not call police to report it stolen until after she saw it on the TV news when Corke’s home was raided.

Originally published as Gold Coast drug kingpin gives secret evidence on supercar sale