Police hold concerns accused drug trafficker Shane Charter will flee the country and ‘retire overseas’

A controversial biochemist embroiled in the Essendon supplements scandal has been banned from leaving Australia.

Police fear Essendon supplements saga figure Shane Charter will flee the country as the controversial biochemist has asked a court to hand back his passport despite facing testosterone trafficking charges.

Charter was charged with four counts of trafficking and one of failing to provide information after organised crime busting taskforce Echo raided a Fitzroy property linked to him in September last year.

As part of his bail conditions over the drug seizures – which included testosterone, diazepam, viagra and anastrozole – he was ordered to surrender his passport and banned from leaving Australia.

But the former body builder, who was a key figure in the Bombers supplements scandal that saw 34 footballers suspended, has asked the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court to allow him to go overseas for “work purposes”.

Shane Charter was a key figure in the Bombers supplements scandal. Picture: Instagram

In arguing against his application this week, Victoria Police unearthed text messages that they claim showed Charter talking about a desire to obtain a Dutch passport, a dual citizenship and “retire overseas”.

Detective Senior Constable Lewis Vincent told the court this week that Charter’s messages suggest he may have property overseas and access to more than $600k in an offshore bank account.

But the Riddells Creek man, through his lawyer, denied those messages were proof of anything, stating he had made no attempts to get a passport for any other country.

Det Vincent said police had analysed 250,000 messages on three phones linked to Charter that were seized as part of the September 15 raids.

Among those messages, he said someone asked Charter if property was cheaper overseas than in Australia.

“Hell yeah,” Charter replied, according to the detective.

Charter has denied attempting to get a passport for another country. Picture: Kylie Else

A screenshot of a Wells Fargo bank account in the name of ‘Elite Athlete Performance’ found on the phone was tendered to the court, but it couldn’t be confirmed who created the screenshot or owned the bank account.

Police allege that Charter was “engaged in commercial transactions of regulated substances”, where medications were resold to people without prescriptions.

The court heard that while police claim there was an “illegal arrangement” going on, Charter’s defence would argue that there was nothing illegal about it.

In the September raid on a commercial property at Nicholson St, Fitzroy, which Charter owns or co-owns, Det Vincent said police seized prescription medications with blacked out labels that were repackaged for new patients with invoices at higher prices than what they ought to be sold for.

Det Vincent said police also found documents with blank prescription templates, which he said indicated “potential fraud”.

He said Charter made “no comment” during an interview at Richmond police station.

Presented with the possibility Charter could make a surety to fork out cash to comply with new bail conditions, Det Vincent said that still didn’t ameliorate his concerns he could flee, nor did the fact he had a wife and four children in Australia.

Magistrate Rohan Lawrence asked for Charter to provide evidence that one of his clients had asked him to go overseas for a work trip.

The biochemist’s lawyer told the court that he’d previously travelled with patients who required international treatments for conditions including heart failure, liver transplants or breast cancer.

Charter asked for the case to be adjourned and will return to court on February 13.