Former NRL star allegedly caught up in $360m drug bust of major syndicate
A former NRL player and a Bondi cafe proprietor are among 15 people arrested over the biggest cocaine seizure in Australian history.
It’s alleged the group were involved in an Australian criminal syndicate connected to 500kg of cocaine in NSW and 600kg of cocaine about to be imported from Tahiti, worth a combined $360m.
Sydney eastern suburbs personality Darren Mohr, former owner of the Bondi Rescue HQ cafe run by the lifesavers on the hit show Bondi Rescue, could face life in jail if convicted over the cocaine haul.
Mr Mohr has previously flaunted his wealthy lifestyle on social media, with pictures in designer suits, at prestigious yacht clubs including in Monaco and expensive jewellery.
For more than two years, federal and state police worked with Border Force to track every move of the complex criminal conspiracy.
The 500kg of cocaine seized. Source: NSW Police
“This job started with a thread of information which was given to the New South Wales police drug squad two and a half years ago,” NSW Police Crime Commander Mark Jenkins said.
"The size of that seizure collectively makes it the largest cocaine seizure in Australian law enforcement history," AFP Acting Assistant Commissioner Chris Sheehan told reporters in Sydney.
Detectives first seized 32kg of heroin in Fiji in 2014 and then the French Navy intercepted 600kg of cocaine off the coast of Tahiti.
Former Roosters player John Tobin (left) and Darren John Mohr (right). Source: Facebook
NSW Police, AFP and Border Force along with authorities from Tahiti and Fiji coordinated the sting that targeted the operation allegedly run out of the Sydney Fish Markets.
A fishing trawler would travel from the fish markets out to sea to rendezvous with the "mother ship" coming from South America, police will allege.
Officers and agents attached to Operation Okesi moved on the alleged traffickers on Christmas Night, netting the half-tonne of cocaine as a dinghy pulled into Brooklyn on the NSW Central Coast.
Sydney's eastern suburbs personality John Mohr and the boat seized on the Central Coast. Source: Facebook/NSW Police
"The criminal syndicate we have dismantled over the last few days was a robust, resilient and determined syndicate,” Mr Sheehan said.
The drug syndicate allegedly used a commercial fishing trawler to transport cocaine and heroin from Chile to Australia.
One of those arrested was former Roosters player John Tobin, 57, who played 125 first-grade games throughout the 1970s and '80s, as was 63-year-old Joseph Pirello who famously failed to bring the Supertrawler into Australian fishing waters in 2012.
The syndicate was allegedly run out of Sydney's Fish Market. Source: NSW Police
NSW Police State Crime Commander Mark Jenkins credited the community, saying small inputs from the community made the operation possible.
“This job started with just a thread of information to the NSWPF’s Drug Squad two-and-a-half years ago,” he said.
The operation played out over more than two years. Source: NSW Police
“That thread has helped us keep more than a tonne of illegal drugs out of NSW.”
Mr Sheehan, the AFP's Organised Crime national manager, added that every alleged member of the syndicate had been arrested.
“No matter how many ventures we disrupted they still kept going,” he said.
