The thick undergrowth on Jane Table Mountain near Princess Charlotte Bay in Far North Queensland was surrounded by hostile terrain teeming with crocodiles, mosquitoes and snakes The target could hardly have been more unsuitable. The flat land mass had a survey marker on its summit which Barron would aim for when he let the drugs go. Instead of touching down at Mount Carbine, he suggested it would be safer if he flew back alone from Port Moresby and dropped the drugs from the plane.īarron chose Jane Table Mountain, a plateau inland from Princess Charlotte Bay on the eastern side of the Cape York Peninsula.
#State police the wild at heart series trial#
Two months later Bridge and Parker carried two kilos of heroin to Port Moresby in a red tartan suitcase which they left at the Davara Hotel before flying back to Sydney.ĭespite the seeming success of the trial operation, Barron saw room for improvement. On the return flight Barron would again stop at Mount Carbine where Parker would exit and be met by Milligan and Bridge who would drive the drugs back to Sydney.īarron did a dry run, flying to and from PNG from Cairns via Mount Carbine in June 1977. Lewis is picturedĭuring the journey he would make an unscheduled stop at an isolated airstrip on Mount Carbine and pick up Parker who would collect the suitcase in Port Moresby. Their nefarious partnership corroded Queensland policing and politics for decades. Glen Hallahan, who was suspected of involvement in several murders, Terry Lewis and Tony Murphy were collectively known as the Rat Pack. Hallahan's plan called for Parker to fly to Bangkok, buy the heroin and take it to Port Moresby in a false-bottomed suitcase.īarron's job was to borrow a Piper Twin Comanche light plane from Cairns, supposedly on behalf of Sharp, and take it on a bogus test flight up to Port Moresby. Together, the three became known as the 'Rat Pack' and their nefarious partnership corroded Queensland policing and politics for decades.īy the time Hallahan was funding Milligan's importations, Lewis was commissioner and Murphy a detective superintendent in charge of the CIB. Hallahan, who was suspected of involvement in several murders, was a close associate of two other corrupt Queensland policemen, Terry Lewis and Tony Murphy. Keeping his hands clean of all this was Hallahan, a crooked detective sergeant who had left the Queensland Police Force in 1972 to be a full-time criminal.
Jane Table Mountain is near Princess Charlotte Bay John Milligan and his fellow conspirators chose some of the most remote country in Australia for their bungled drug importation. In early 1977 a band of crooks put together by Milligan conspired to import 2 kilograms of heroin - a huge haul for the time worth about $1.5million - from Thailand via Papua New Guinea. Operation Jungle is described on its cover as 'The true story of a daring heroin drop, an intrepid investigation and a Royal Commission'. Its narrator is retired law enforcement officer John Shobbrook who has chronicled what happened after he brought down drug trafficker John Edward Milligan in an extraordinary new book. The whole tale, with its comically bungled drug importation, dogged detective work, and crushing legal battles, is screaming out to be turned into a television series. It is also an expose of a corrupt band of senior state police whose reach stretched well beyond their own jurisdiction into politics and the highest levels of the judiciary.Īnd it all begins with an account of an ambitious criminal escapade so poorly planned and executed the sheer scale of its ineptitude beggars belief. This is the story of an honest cop who fought crime without fear or favour only to be hounded out of the career he loved for doing his job so diligently.
John Shobbrook was an honest cop brought down by corrupt police and a compliant judiciary.
0 kommentar(er)
