I Catch Killers: How NSW cop Charlie Staunton became a hash trafficker
Charlie Staunton thought that he would be a NSW cop for life until he made critical error that would lead him to the underworld and jail in a Canadian Supermax. Don’t miss Gary Jubelin’s I Catch Killers podcast.
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If you were to ask Charlie Staunton’s mother where his life took a detour for the worse she would have said the day he joined the NSW Police Force.
If you ask Staunton himself he would admit the day he failed to book up six dozen bottles of stolen scotch he discovered in a car boot in Redfern was the moment that changed his life forever, but he wouldn’t agree it was always for the worse.
Up until then Staunton thought his life was mapped out in front of him; a Patrician Brothers schoolboy who became a Commonwealth Bank teller before joining the Force where he believed he would serve out his working days and finish as a chief superintendent.
LISTEN BELOW: Don’t miss Gary Jubelin’s compelling chat with Charlie Staunton, former NSW cop that was imprisoned in Canada for his role in trafficking 25 tonnes of hashish
Part 1: 72 bottles of scotch that changed a cop’s life
Part 2: 25 tons of hash and life behind bars of a Canadian Supermax
Instead, that fateful day when he ignored his instinct to officially report the alcohol theft would result in him becoming a Kings Cross doorman then jailed for contempt after refusing to appear at the Wood Royal Commission before becoming an international drug smuggler that finished with him being locked away in a Canadian Supermax prison for his role in importing 25 tonnes of hashish.
Not to mention the boozy nights with Joe Cocker and Madonna.
As Gary Jubelin says on his last instalment of his I Catch Killers podcast for Season 3, Staunton’s life seems like it’s been ripped from the pages of a novel. And in a compelling episode Staunton traces back over his life detailing the corruption rife days of the NSW Police Force in the 1970s and 80s, his time as a Kings Cross Mr Fix-It before he became a player in a major drug cartel.
From the moment he graduated in 1978 Staunton knew he would be able to get away with more than the public when, in his first week out of the police Academy, he was asked to drive a superior home from a pub where they’d both been drinking heavily, in a police car he wasn’t certified to drive.
“Right from the get go (I was breaking the rules). To be fair I was a bit disappointed in it. But then there was a, ‘You know, if you’re a policeman, you’re allowed to do this (approach).’ And 19 years of age all your superiors are telling us, ‘This is all right for you. It’s not for everyone else. It’s all right for you,’ it’s a bit of a conundrum” Staunton recalls of these early days.
From free bread and newspapers to cops on switchboards tipping off tow-truck drivers to more sinister dealings between police and informants, Staunton recalls that law-breaking was so common that he became desensitised to it.
“But as a policeman, I thought you should be held to a higher standard … But you almost condone (law-breaking) when you don’t do anything about it. But if you did do something about it, you’d be ostracised, you’d be out.”
While it was a matter of conscience, policing was also, at times, a matter of life and death for Staunton who was recruited into the Tactical Response Group that was set upon by drunken fans at the infamous 1985 Bathurst Bike Races which turned into a full-scale riot.
Molotov cocktails, bricks, rocks and bottles rained down on the compound the TRG was stationed in at the top of the hill.
“I got hit with a Molotov and that lit me and then I’ve hit the ground and then just this bombardment of bricks. And it just split my thigh in two when they hit it. It was a war zone, you know, you’ve seen lots of war movies, that’s exactly what happened there that night.”
It wasn’t long though, before Staunton’s policing career would come to an end.
Having stumbled on the 72 scotch bottles, Staunton admits his mistake in not booking it up.
“I went to book it up and the sergeant said. ‘Don’t worry young fella … I’ll take care of this,” Staunton recalls.
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’
“He said, ‘You don’t know where it’s come from, it’s going to be a paperwork trail for 100 years and then it’ll just be auctioned so don’t worry about it, we’ll just get rid of it.’
“And I didn’t want to, but I was I was sort of new at Darlinghurst and I went, ‘Oh bugger it, go on, what the fuck do I care?’”
He maintains to this day he doesn’t know how a dozen bottles ended up in the boot of his car, which were found the following night when internal security knocked on the door to his western Sydney home where he lived with his wife and two young sons.
From there his life would never be the same. Soon after he was the doorman at Baron’s and would spend the best part of a decade at Kings Cross where he became known as the area’s Mr Fix-It.
The Wood Royal Commission in the mid-90s called him to appear and he spent a year in jail for contempt for refusing to answer questions. ”The whole Royal Commission was just a bully,” he tells Jubelin.
After he finally relented he fled to Europe, found himself mates in the early 2000s with the sister of Guy Ritchie, then married to Madonna and together they’d hit the pub. Music industry links saw him boozing all night with Joe Cocker too.
Then through an old connection of his, he became involved with an international drug cartel that was trafficking huge quantities of hashish in a deal that was personally worth over $20 million.
“I was broke and couldn’t go back to Australia (and) I didn’t have a problem with marijuana.”
So Staunton committed and lived the high life all around the world as a “project manager”.
“Honestly, I thought this has got to be the best job in the world.”
Until it all came crashing down one night in Montreal when he was pinned for a 25-tonne hashish shipment and sentenced to 10 years in prison where he came under the protection of imprisoned Canadian mafia don Frank Cotroni.
Long out of jail and now living in London, Staunton released a book called “The Good Bloke” about his eventful life.
He tells Jubelin that despite his eventful life that is how he views himself, as a good bloke.
“I did what I did. And. People have asked, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ Well, no, not really. I’m not.”
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Originally published as I Catch Killers: How NSW cop Charlie Staunton became a hash trafficker
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