Named and shamed: Ex-stars jailed over failed Aussie cocaine deals
Former sport stars and exotic dancers have been jailed in some of the wilder cocaine deals that failed in the country. Here’s a look at what happened.
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Superyacht moguls, exotic dancers and Olympians are among the Aussies named and shamed in failed cocaine deals around the country, as the drug trade in Australia continues to boom.
Here are some of the wilder cases to land on Australian shores.
BONDI ‘NARCISSIST’ DARREN MOHR
Former owner of Bondi Rescue HQ cafe Darren John Mohr was jailed for 32 years for his role in a $150m Christmas Day smuggling operation.
He has now launched a bid to get his sentences reduced.
Mohr, 50, stood to make about $5m out of the elaborate plan to use fishing boats to sail from the Sydney Fish Markets into international waters to collect 500kg cocaine.
Police were waiting for the drug laden-vessel when it pulled up to a Central Coast boat ramp on December 25, 2016.
Prior to arrest, he boasted about his lavish life with ex-girlfriend Krissy Marsh on social media, which included luxury cars and holidays.
Ms Marsh penned a letter to Justice Helen Wilson, urging her to show leniency. She said Mohr was “the type of person to give you the shirt off his back”.
“He may look like a tough guy but I assure you his heart is soft.”
However, during sentencing in 2020, Justice Wilson slammed Mohr as an insecure, coke-addicted narcissist with a “desire for power, prestige and authority”.
She said he travelled the world to arrange the sophisticated operation in order to achieve a faster and more glamorous road to riches, before she gave him the hefty sentence with an 18-year non-parole period.
He will first be eligible for release in January 2037.
In late-2024, he appealed to get his sentence reduced, with defence barrister Bret Walker SC arguing the jail term was excessive when compared to those meted out to some of his co-offenders.
The sentence appeal is before the courts.
DISGRACED CRICKETER STUART MACGILL
Former Australian cricketer Stuart MacGill managed to avoid jail for his role in a $330,000 cocaine deal.
A court heard MacGill, 54, helped organise a meeting between his partner’s brother and a street-level drug dealer underneath his own restaurant in Neutral Bay, Sydney, in April 2021.
A jury at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court heard the ex-cricketer regularly bought cocaine from the dealer, usually in half-gram quantities for $200.
While the initial deal went smoothly, the dealer fled with about $660,000 worth of cocaine, exchanging the drugs for a vacuum-sealed back of A4 paper concealed by $50 notes. He then turned his phone off and deleted the encrypted app he was using.
The situation reached boiling point later that month when threats came in, demanding the location of the dealer or the return of the money.
MacGill was then pulled into the back of a car and taken to an abandoned shed in Sydney’s west, where he was assaulted, threatened, and released. He approached police about the ordeal six days later, denying any involvement in the drug deal.
MacGill claimed in court that he only introduced the dealer and his brother-in-law, and that he left the meeting immediately after the introduction. However, that version of events was rejected by the jury during his eight-day trial.
In March, a jury found him guilty of taking part in the supply of a prohibited drug.
He was found not guilty of the more serious charge of taking part in the supply of a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.
SUPERYACHT MOGUL JAMES BLEE
Eccentric superyacht owner James Blake Blee, 64, was handed an 11-year sentence for his role in a $20m cocaine smuggling plot.
The plan was fraught, resulting in one dead Brazilian diver, another diver on the run, and 42 bricks of cocaine floating around the Port of Newcastle, north of Sydney.
Blee had illegally smuggled Brazilian divers Bruno Borges-Martins, 31, and Jhoni Fernandes Da Silva, 32, on a chartered yacht called Vivre from Indonesia into Australia via Darwin in 2022.
They were hired to retrieve 108kg of cocaine attached to the hull of a ship docked in Newcastle on May 9 of that year.
However, things fell apart the following day when Borges-Martins’ body was found floating facedown in the Port of Newcastle – surrounded by cocaine bricks.
That same morning, Blee dropped Da Silva at an apartment in Newcastle. He was never seen again.
Prior to the smuggling operation, Blee had been running a charter yacht company in Bali, but found himself without an income when the business collapsed amid the pandemic.
He was offered $300,000 for his role in the operation, of which $200,000 was to be paid upfront.
Blee was arrested two days later in Cairns while preparing to board a one-way flight to Singapore.
He told police: “If that kid hadn’t have died, we wouldn’t be here. Nobody would’ve known what was going on.”
TWO-TIME OLYMPIAN NATHAN BAGGALEY
Olympic silver medallist Nathan Baggaley and his brother Dru Baggaley were jailed over a botched plot to smuggle $200m worth of cocaine into Australia.
Nathan bought and registered a boat and installed navigation equipment in 2018, including a satellite phone which operated under the vessel name Medellín.
He then entered mapping details into the satellite system and placed black tape over the boat’s registration, before Dru and another man, Anthony Draper, filled more than 20 jerry cans with fuel and boarded the boat at Brunswick Heads, in northern NSW.
They travelled hundreds of kilometres offshore and met with a foreign ship, which had about 20 armed people on board, before parcels with about 650kg of cocaine were moved onto Dru’s vessel.
The pair were pursued by Australian police. When a navy patrol boat was deployed, they threw the drugs overboard.
Dru and Draper were arrested. Nathan was waiting for the pair at the boat ramp and had tried to call the satellite phone.
He was not charged until 2019.
Dru and Nathan were originally sentenced to 25 and 28 years behind bars, respectively, but sentencing was reduced on appeal last year in the Brisbane District Court to 15 and 13 years.
With time already served, they were immediately eligible for parole.
Draper was also sentenced to 13 years.
EXOTIC DANCER MATTHEW HODDER
Former stripper Matthew Luke Hodder, who also went by ‘Matty Thunder’ and ‘DIY Dave’, was arrested for his role in an international 91kg cocaine heist.
Working with an international crime syndicate, Hodder, 33, and Portuguese national Carlos Davide Ferreira-Sampaio, 48, were tasked with collecting the haul from a container ship called Spirit of Auckland in Melbourne in 2022.
Things went awry when they got spooked after seeing police at the dock. Instead, they followed the boat to the next dock in Port Otago in New Zealand.
By the time they arrived, they had no idea the drugs had been removed by US authorities and the ship was in Philadelphia. Police then watched their futile attempts to secure the narcotics.
They were arrested in Dunedin while buying diving gear to search the hull of the vessel.
Hodder was jailed for four years and Ferreira-Sampaio was jailed for five.
In September, Hodder won his bid to be allowed to fly back home to Melbourne. His only parole condition was that he should not return to New Zealand.
‘BREAKING BAD’ COUPLE ARTI DHIR, KAVALJITSINH RAIJADA
Indian-British nationals Arti Dhir, 59, and Kavaljitsinh Raijada, 35, were convicted of trafficking $154.2m worth of cocaine hidden inside toolboxes.
The plot was exposed in May 2021 when Australian Border Force at Sydney Airport found the cocaine, before police orchestrated a controlled delivery operation to uncover the network.
The couple, from London, worked for a flight services company based at Heathrow Airport between 2003 and 2016 when they set up their own airfreight company for the sole purpose of trafficking drugs to Australia.
They made 37 freight consignment flights to Australia – 22 were labelled “dummy runs”, and 15 were carrying cocaine. The 500kg haul was the only one seized.
The British National Crime Authority worked with NSW Police to unravel the operation which was suspected of being significantly larger.
When police raided their home in London, they found more than $6m in cash hidden in boxes and suitcases in a storage facility, another $100,000 in a safety deposit box, $26,000 cash, and $10,000 worth of gold-plated silver bars.
There was also a trail of luxury homes and cars in their names. Another $1.4m was deposited into 22 different bank accounts.
In 2024, the pair were convicted by a jury on 12 counts of drug exportation and 18 counts of money laundering.
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