Fugitive dark net couple caught living new life in affluent Adelaide suburb.
Fugitive dark net couple caught living new life in affluent Adelaide suburb.
By Marnie O'Neill
Their case reads like a movie script.
A mum and dad charged with cooking vast quantities of drugs and distributing them on the internet black market skip bail - and reinvent themselves as a well-heeled family in an affluent suburb on the other side of the country.
But the story doesn't end there.
Instead of lying low, the Gold Coast couple, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, enrol their daughters in one of South Australia's most exclusive private schools and allegedly reprise their role as Australia's "dark net drug kingpins".
Police allege they found a commercial quantity of the hallucinogenic Psilocybin when they raided the couple's house in Adelaide. Photo / SA Police
Except this time the product is not ice, heroin or cannabis - drugs the pair were allegedly supplying online until their first arrest in July last year - it's a psychedelic mushroom rarely found in Australia.
The couple, he is 41 and she is 46, were arrested on Monday in spectacular fashion just hours after police released photographs of the nation's most wanted fugitives and the calls started rolling in to CrimeStoppers.
As the Advertiser exclusively reported, plainclothes detectives descended on the pair as they arrived at Adelaide's exclusive Walford Anglican School for Girls to collect their two daughters.
Onlookers were reportedly none the wiser as undercover officers captured the couple without incident in full view of parents and students just before 4pm.
Walford is regarded as one of the state's most prestigious girls' schools and boarders fork out more than A$20,000 ($21,900) in annual fees.
Principal Rebecca Clarke sent a letter to parents to bring them up to speed with the dramatic events and to reassure them that no child was placed at risk during the sting.
More photographs allegedly showing the manufacture and storage of the hallucinogenic Psilocybin inside the couple's Adelaide home. Photo / SA Police
According to the Advertiser, which obtained a copy, Clarke explained that "police were required to attend the school grounds".
"Their attendance was in response to an investigation that does not involve the school or any event or circumstance related to the school," the letter continued.
"At no stage was there any risk to students, staff or members of the Walford community."
Police will allege that when they searched the couple's home in the affluent suburb of Goodwood, they found a "large commercial quantity of the controlled drug psilocybin" - a hallucinogenic mushroom - being grown in plastic tubs.
Sturt Criminal Investigation Branch Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Overmeyer, told reporters it was "unusual" to discover psilocybin being hydroponically grown in the state.
"[I] want to reiterate the dangers of producing drugs of any kind in the home," he said.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in more than 200 species of mushroom and produces mind-altering effects similar to those brought on by ingestion of LSD and DMT.
Undercover police arrested the couple in front of parents and students as they picked up their daughters from Adelaide's exclusive Walford Anglican School for Girls. Photo / Google Maps
American counterculture figure Timothy Leary conducted early experiments into the drug's effects in the 1960s.
The magic mushroom set up may have come as a surprise to investigators given that it is not a drug previously believed to be associated with the couple.
The pair was initially arrested by Queensland drug squad detectives in July last year on charges of distributing ice, heroin and cannabis on the dark net.
They were granted bail but rearrested less than two months later after police seized 71 cannabis plants from their Pacific Pines home after neighbours reported a "strong odour" emanating from the property.
The house had allegedly been modified and used as a hydroponic cannabis production lab. It was just 200m from a primary school.
Incredibly, they were released on bail for a second time and fled the state shortly after.
Warrants were issued for their arrest after they failed to front Beenleigh Magistrates Court on December 13.
By that time, however, the couple had likely already crossed the country to South Australia, where they reinvented themselves as a law-abiding family and rubbed shoulders with unsuspecting locals.
The case has incurred the wrath of Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers, who questioned how two people accused of such serious crimes could make bail against the advice of police - not once but twice.
"Police do not object to bail lightly and these submissions can be complex and time consuming, however, ultimately the final decision is up to the courts," he told the Advertiser.
"All too often police are seeing some individuals who pose a very real flight risk receiving bail, however, we as police will always do our best to keep the community safe even if we see what we perceive to be a revolving door of a justice system."
The man and woman remain in custody and have yet to plead to trafficking in a large commercial quantity of a controlled drug charges.
