Fugitive Jim Soukoulis believed to be hiding out in South East Asia

A fugitive wanted by police over an audacious 225kg drug import plot to Melbourne is believed to have fled to Asia, as new photos show his ties to the Hells Angels.

Alleged transnational drug smuggling mastermind Jim Soukoulis is believed to have fled towards Darwin immediately after he last reported for bail at South Melbourne police station in 2019, fuelling suspicion he has made his way to Southeast Asia.

Soukoulis, 57, was at the time awaiting trial over his allegations he led a drug syndicate which tried to fly a heavily modified Cessna packed with 255kg of methamphetamine across the Pacific from California to Australia.

Soukoulis, a former Sydney cafe owner originally from Adelaide, was extradited from NSW after the Cessna plot unravelled, and was living in South Melbourne when he skipped bail.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal Soukoulis’s close links to the Hells Angels bikie gang.

Soukoulis (fourth right from rear) in a Phuket restaurant with a group of senior Hells Angels.

A previously unpublished photograph shows him sitting in a restaurant in Patong, Thailand in 2017, fraternising with senior Australian and international Hells Angels.

Among them is Melbourne’s Luke Moloney, since appointed the head of the gang’s CBD-based Angel City chapter.

Also at the table in Phuket is Canadian national Damion Ryan, a member of the club’s Attica chapter in Greece, where Soukoulis has connections.

Daniel Callaghan, an influential Hells Angel from Sydney, was another at the gathering of heavy-hitters.

The reason for the meeting is not known but dates from when the Cessna plot was in its advanced stages of planning.

Soukoulis — a regular visitor to Thailand — appears to be the only non-Hells Angel at the restaurant.

The Australian Federal Police declined to speak about the Patong image but have released a picture of a man and a woman in a grey Subaru Forester taken at Marla, near the South Australia-Northern Territory border, a day after Soukoulis was last seen.

Soukoulis was allegedly involved in a plot to fly 255kg of methamphetamine into Australia.

Soukoulis vanished after reporting for bail at South Melbourne in November 2019.

The image appears to show the driver is Soukoulis.

Soukoulis was captured on CCTV reporting for bail at South Melbourne police at 6.32am on November 12, 2019.

The Marla image was taken at 4.22am the next day, meaning Soukoulis may have spent the previous 22 hours on the road covering the 1800km distance.

The route raises the possibility he was heading to the Northern Territory with plans to somehow get from there to Asia where he is well-connected.

The Subaru had a New South Wales registration of CVO6LN.

At the time he fled, Soukoulis was awaiting trial on a charge of conspiracy to import 272kg of methamphetamine from California to Australia.

A light plane fitted with long-range fuel tanks was allegedly to be used to make an island-hopping voyage across the Pacific.

The allegations at the centre of the conspiracy are believed to cover the period in which Soukoulis dined with the Hells Angels in Thailand.

The cessna used to bring in the drugs.

Warrants were conducted on a Sydney property linked to the outlaw motorcycle gang as part of the same investigation.

Soukoulis was also awaiting proceedings over a 2013 matter in which he was charged over the seizure in Sydney of 300 grams of cocaine and 112 grams of methamphetamine.

He has previously served 12 years jail for importing cocaine.

That haul was allegedly to be transported to Melbourne.

The details of the Cessna plot have been aired in the most detail in proceedings in the United States District Court.

Pilot Hugh Gorman, a former RAAF officer, purchased the aircraft from a broker in Santa Rosa, using money laundered through a business account he opened at Westpac in Melton.

He then purchased the drugs in a series of street deals, and stashed them in a storage unit in Windsor, California, an hour north of San Francisco.

He was arrested as he tried to board a commercial flight to California, where the Cessna was undergoing the last of its modifications ahead of the planned trans-Pacific journey.

The killer drug ice was flown 13,000km from California to Melbourne.

Gorman told the AFP the heavily-modified Cessna “was purchased specifically to transport those drugs” and identified Melbourne accountant Peter Caluzzi and Soukoulis as the “planners of the criminal operation”.

He stood to be paid “a large amount of money” for his efforts.

The plot came unstuck largely because of AFP wiretaps, the US courts have heard.

Gorman is now serving a minimum of eight years jail, while Caluzzi is serving a minimum of 11 years.

But by the time they were sentenced in 2021, Soukoulis had fled and his whereabouts was unknown.

Police have since learned he withdrew $8000 in cash from ATMs in Melbourne in the days before he vanished.

Soukoulis’ vanishing act cost his brother, Adelaide man Terry Soukoulis, $150,000 and a Melbourne friend, Natalie Mitrevski, $120,000 after their bail sureties were forfeited.

Soukoulis’ 89-year-old mother Georgia, whose house was also put up as surety, was not pursued because she had not signed the surety document.

AFP Detective Leading Senior Constable Greg Hinds appealed for the public to view the 2019 image from Marla and come forward with any information about those on board.

“The Australian Federal Police is appealing for information on the current whereabouts of Jim Soukoulis. The AFP continues to investigate whether Soukoulis remains in Australia or has departed,” he said.

Soukoulis is 180cm tall, or medium build, olive complexion and wears reading glasses.

He has tattoos of a Capricorn star sign on the left of his chest, a Taurus bull on the right and the Greek mythology figure Medusa on his back.

Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.