He and Baggaley loaded a “substantial” number of black packages, thrown from the larger vessel, onto the RHIB, he said. They met up with a “big red boat” with “South American people”, some holding guns, on board, Draper testified. “(Draper’s) basically said … I’m going to be held responsible for all this s*** and people are going to come after my family and me if I don’t come on board,” he added.ĭraper, 56, earlier told the court he flew from Sydney to Coolangatta at Dru Baggaley’s request.ĭraper said he thought the pair were going a couple of kilometres offshore to pick up “smoko” which he thought was marijuana. “Most of us have a sense of when we are being followed and clearly this juror felt that,” Justice Lyons said.ĭru Baggaley, 39, has told the court another man, Anthony Draper, asked him to buy a boat and get it ready to meet a ship from Indonesia that would bring tobacco to be sold in Australia.ĭru Baggaley said Draper provided $100,000 cash for the rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), which Baggaley could keep to start a whale-watching business.īut when the pair were at the boat ramp at Brunswick Heads about 9.30pm on July 30, 2018, Draper was “panicking” and said: “Mate, you’re f***ing coming with me whether you like it or not.”īaggaley said he told Draper that was “never the agreement”, he had work in the morning and gets seasick, but the other man insisted.ĭraper warned he would tell “dangerous people” involved in the importation of the tobacco worth more than $1 million where his family lived, he said. Strategies were also put in place to ensure the safety of jurors for the rest of the trial after one juror also believed they were followed last Wednesday evening while walking to the train station, despite changing course. “If they do come to the court house again they will not be allowed to enter the court building.” The two brothers share a record of drug offenses and convictions.“We don’t know why the persons who were thought to be staring were here,” she added. His brother received a 28-year sentence, also with the possibility of parole after 16 years.ĭraper was handed a reduced sentence of 13 years in exchange for testimony against the Baggaley brothers. Nathan Baggaley has been sentenced to 25 years of prison with the possibility of parole after 16 years. While Nathan was not aboard, courtroom evidence suggested that he was an active part of the plan and would have helped transport the drugs onto the mainland. According to local reports from the trial proceedings, the presiding judge, Justice Anne Lyons, said that she did not think either brother was at the top of a drug trafficking network but that both were motivated by financial gain. Pursued by the Australian Navy and Air Force and subsequently arrested by the Queensland Water Police, Dru and Draper were seen throwing the packages overboard.ĭefense lawyers suggested that Nathan Baggaley didn’t know the packages contained cocaine and thought the boat would be used to begin a whale-watching business, while his brother believed only that the packages contained tobacco. Nathan had been on the mainland communicating to his brother with an encrypted messaging app. On July 30, 2018, air surveillance captured footage of Dru loading their boat with dozens of packages from a foreign vessel with another man, Anthony Draper. He and his brother were caught three years ago trying to smuggle packages containing 512 kilograms of pure cocaine from an unidentified foreign vessel more than two hundred miles from the Australian coast. They were found guilty in April by a Brisbane Supreme Court jury for attempting to import more than US$152 million worth of cocaine.īrisbane Supreme Court (Photo: Kgbo, Wikimedia, License)A two-time silver medalist from Australia who also won several World Championships in sprint canoeing, Nathan had been used to blowing his competition out of the water - until his competition was the Australian Navy. Following a two week trial, former Olympic kayaker Nathan Baggaley and his brother, Dru Baggaley, were formally sentenced on Tuesday to 25 and 28 years in prison respectively.
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