Photos reveal lifestyle of Geelong drug trafficker Alex Urquhart
He embraced a “gangster lifestyle” and all its trappings: guns, gold chains, luxury cars and designer clothes. But he slept on a mattress on the floor, next to a cash counting machine, in an industrial estate. SEE THE PICS.
Geelong
Don't miss out on the headlines from Geelong. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Alex Urquhart picked up the phone; his mother on the other end of the line.
He was sitting in the Metropolitan Remand Centre, having been arrested four days earlier after being nabbed swerving across Pakington St in the early hours of June 1, 2022.
Police noticed the back of the BMW had been fishtailing and intercepted him at Clarence St.
A search of Urquhart and the car revealed a pocket knife, ice and heroin, four sets of car keys and more than $4000 in cash.
He was swiftly arrested and, after giving a no comment interview, was remanded in custody.
In a recorded phone call from prison on June 5, 2022, Urquhart told his mother to have an associate retrieve the money he kept in a grey Volkswagen Golf – it would be enough to pay a surety and get him out, he told her.
“Oh that’s a safe place for it,” his mother replied, according to court documents.
Urquhart asked if she remembered what he paid for his Mercedes, telling her there was “three times that” in the Volkswagen.
The only catch was police had already searched the trafficker’s home.
Earlier this year, Urquhart was jailed for a maximum of seven years and four months after pleading guilty to charges including trafficking in commercial quantities of ice and 1,4 butanediol, with a non-parole period of five years and six months.
Last week the Geelong Advertiser lifted the lid on the dangers of 1,4 butanediol, also known as bute or liquid fantasy, a date rape drug that slows down the central nervous system.
The drug is an industrial insolvent commonly used in manufacturing, but it turns into popular party drug gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) when ingested.
Evidence photos subsequently released to the Geelong Advertiser by the Office of Public Prosecutions offer a glimpse inside the ramshackle HQ of Urquhart’s drug dealing operation, from a stolen car full of drugs, money and bullets to a mattress on the floor by a money counting machine.
At his sentencing, the court heard Urquhart embraced the trappings of a “gangster lifestyle” – guns, gold chains, designer clothing, luxury cars and unearned success.
But he slept on a mattress on the floor of a unit in an industrial estate in Moolap.
He hadn’t been back in Geelong for long, having been released from prison in November 2021.
After attending a residential rehabilitation program at The Cottage in Shepparton for several months, Urquhart left and briefly couch-surfed in Melbourne before arriving back in Geelong, where things quickly unravelled.
He began using drugs again and associating with others in the drug trade.
Urquhart was, as his lawyer said during his plea hearing in June, “skilled in the dark arts”, and the evidence littered the unit.
In the living area police found a homemade firearm, capable of being fired, and a gun cleaning kit.
It was noted in court that Urquhart seemed to have an affinity for guns.
Analysis of Urquhart’s phone revealed footage from April 25, 2022, showing two males leaving Urquhart’s address in a white Volkswagen ute, before Urquhart ran out onto the road and fired two shots with a concealed semiautomatic pistol.
Along with the gun, police found a knuckleduster, two flick knives and an electronic cash counter not far from the mattress on the floor that served as Urquhart’s bed.
The Volkswagen Golf Urquhart had mentioned on the phone from prison, which had been reported stolen in Tullamarine, contained an Aladdin’s cave of criminality.
Inside officers found a shoebox containing eight firearm magazines, two scopes and 22 boxes of assorted ammunition along with a plastic shopping bag containing watches and jewellery.
A green Woolworths bag containing $110,000 in cash was found, as was just over 30kg of 1,4 butanediol and more than 100g of ice – both far exceeding the trafficable quantities of each.
Videos found on Urquhart’s phone, which showed him handling the bute, were presented as evidence to the court.
During his plea hearing, the question of how high up Geelong’s underworld hierarchy was raised, with the prosecution asserting he was a high-level player, and his defence placing him as somewhere in the middle.
Not all the cash seized was destined for Urquhart’s pocket, the court heard, with his lawyer euphemistically referring to “other pressures” of his line of work.
Judge Marcus Dempsey concluded he couldn’t say where Urquhart sat in the pecking order.
Urquhart is behind bars, but the trade of bute and ice in Geelong continues.
More Coverage
Originally published as Photos reveal lifestyle of Geelong drug trafficker Alex Urquhart
Knife held to camper’s throat, gun stolen in midnight robbery
A Curlewis man held a knife to a man’s throat during a campsite robbery as his teenage co-accused taunted the victim, court documents reveal.
Read more
‘Trying to take on world’: Geelong company’s first steps on UCI WorldTour
A Geelong business has debuted its product on the UCI WorldTour this year with the help of Aussie Rudy Porter, with a major win for both company and cyclist coming in Sunday’s Cadel Evans Road Race.
Read more