Life was sweet indeed for Mark Chikarovski.
The son of NSW’s first female opposition leader and former Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, the then-37-year-old was living in a Meriton apartment in Bondi Junction as he and his wife Hannah made plans to renovate their newly purchased $11.5 million eastern suburbs home.
Mark Chikarovski with mother Kerry, former NSW opposition leader. He is expected to be sentenced on Friday.
He and his wife drove matching Porsche Cayennes, their children were privately educated and they enjoyed trips overseas. Better yet, he didn’t seem to have a job.
His world came tumbling down in May last year, when Chikarovski was caught red-handed – wearing blue latex gloves as he stuffed drugs into an Australia Post envelope – by detectives.
Police had been working for months to nail Chikarovski as dark net drug lord AusCokeKing, and arrested him a week after he and his wife settled on their new home, a sprawling pile in nearby Vaucluse. That same home hit the headlines last month when former Real Housewives of Sydney contender Linda Rogan took WiseTech Global’s chief Richard White to court after he tried to bankrupt her in a fight over the costs of furnishing the waterfront mansion.
Chikarovski’s lavish lifestyle, despite his lack of discernible employment, indicated investigators were on the right track, cybercrime’s Detective Chief Inspector Jason Smith told the Herald.
The newly purchased $11.5 million trophy home in Vaucluse.Credit: Domain
“Once we identified [him] as a suspect and we put them under the microscope, we started to look at all aspects of his life. What you see is someone living an extravagant lifestyle – private schools, overseas holidays – but they don’t seem to do much in terms of work to produce that lifestyle,” Smith said.
“They made some really savvy [property] investments and there is certainly legitimate wealth, but that didn’t explain the cash flow required to fund that lifestyle.”
After his arrest, Chikarovski agreed to forfeit $1.44 million to the Crime Commission in place of the assets it had previously confiscated.
Chikarovski also fitted the profile of the typical dark web vendor busted by the cybercrime squad.
“They’re normally a fairly educated and intelligent person who has never come across the radar of police before. They obviously have a technical proficiency,” Smith said.
Lavish lifestyle… Chikarovski and his wife Hannah drove matching Porsche Cayennes.Credit: NSW Police.
Chikarovski had been selling mass quantities of cocaine, MDMA, crystal methylamphetamine and prescription drugs on the dark web since 2017, Smith said.
“We could tell from the activity in the comments … that they were doing a considerable amount of business. What we can see from looking at activity on the dark net is that this particular vendor had been active for a number of years on Abacus Market, the Incognito Market and others.”
Chikarovski was the only person arrested by the task force, who say he was running a one-stop drug supply shop, packing orders himself then posting a huge volume of small orders from post offices across Sydney’s east.
Chikarovski was arrested at the Bondi Junction apartment.Credit: NSW Police
“It was a very labour-intensive operation, which exposes you to risk. At some point you have to go hands-on with drugs, that’s a real point of vulnerability,” Smith said.
Agreed facts say that from February 6, 2023, until his arrest on May 18 that year, Chikarovski supplied or possessed for the purposes of supply 209.06 grams of MDMA, 167.4 grams of cocaine, 44.05 grams of meth, 135.38 grams of ketamine, and 300 tablets of dexamphetamine.
Mark Chikarovski as a child at home with his mother Kerry in 1991 when she was the member for Lane Cove. Credit: Troy Howe
After police came to suspect Chikarovski was AusCokeKing, an undercover officer became a customer, using cryptocurrency to pay for 18 different orders including “premium European imported MDMA” and “limited time only” imported meth.
“We established this person was not just dealing with one commodity, there were multiple types of drugs being sold, which pose a real risk to the community,” Smith said.
Police are still in the dark about where Chikarovski sourced his drugs from, but believe it was most likely a local organised crime connection because of the volumes being sold.
His arrest came despite his adherence to the principles of the so-called “dark net bible”, which include encrypted communications, cryptocurrency, servers routed all over the world and glove usage to avoid a forensic trace.
“You can use all the technical anonymising techniques in the world, but at some point, you’re going to have to get your hands on some drugs,” Smith said.
“It goes to show that all the protections in the world don’t actually protect you from the long arm of the law. We are certainly determined to let people know that we do police the dark net and if you are on there you still are very much at risk of being arrested.”
Chikarovski is expected to be sentenced on Friday.
Kerry Chikarovski was contacted for comment.
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