Australian Olympian convicted in $150 million cocaine smuggling plot
(The AEGIS Alliance) – He earned 2 Olympic silver medals but was actually after that white powder.
Australian Olympic kayaker Nathan Baggaley was found guilty on Thursday along with his brother, Dru, in a cocaine smuggling scheme worth $150 million of the drug into Australia in 2018.
Prosecutors stated 45-year-old Nathan purchased a speed boat for age 39 Dru and also an additional male to fill them up with 650 kilos of cocaine that was handed over by a big international vessel off the nation’s eastern coastline, according to Aussie news media 9News.
But while the cocaine was being packed onto the boats around 200 miles off the coastline in July of 2018, Australian naval authorities captured Dru as well as Anthony Draper who is the other male suspect, red-handed, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. It resulted in an incredible water chase that consisted of Dru tossing bags of cocaine right into the Pacific Ocean.
The Baggaley brothers pleaded they were innocent and weren’t involved in the plot, however, Draper flipped and gave testimony against the pair in exchange for a shorter prison sentence. After a trial that lasted for two weeks, both Baggaleys was convicted of trying to import a commercial amount of a border-controlled substance.
They are currently imprisoned until they’re officially sentenced at a later time.
Nathan achieved 2 silver medals in kayaking at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.
Nathan and Dru had both been found guilty of drug-related criminal offenses in 2009 and also in 2015.
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
