The Corruption In Australian Airports: Drug Smugglers working with baggage handlers Part 1
Schapelle Leigh Corby;
A 34 year old Australian woman, who, back in October 2004 decided to visit Bali, so she took a plane from Brisbane, switched flights in Sydney, and finally landed in Indonesia.
What happened next is quite ghastly: she was immediately apprehended by Indonesian custom agents who claimed to have found 4.2 kilos of marijuana stashed into her body board bag.
Long story short: since then she has been imprisoned in Kerobokan Jail, one of the most harsh prisons in the world, where she still resides.
But there are a few things that simply do not add up.
Corby stated right away that she had absolutely no knowledge of the drugs, and that her conviction is
absolutely unjust. Let’s examine a few key points:
Schapelle became a sacrificial lamb, an expendable victim whose sole purpose is to keep drug trafficking and corruption in airports well hidden.
It is quite clear that drug smugglers work closely with baggage handlers in Australian airports, as can be seen by two specific episodes (from Wikipedia):
John Ford:
John Patrick Ford, a prisoner at Port Philip Prison who was awaiting trial and was subsequently convicted on unrelated charges, was flown to Indonesia to give evidence in Corby’s defence.
Ford testified that he overheard a conversation in prison between two men and alleged that one of the men planted the marijuana in Corby’s boogie board bag in Brisbane with the intention of having another person remove it in Sydney. He stated that the drugs were owned by Ron Vigenser, who had been a prisoner at the same jail as Ford.
He stated that a mix-up resulted in the marijuana not being removed and subsequently being transported to Indonesia, all without Corby’s knowledge.
He refused to name the man who he claimed planted the drugs. The prosecution pointed out that his evidence was entirely hearsay and that he was facing trial for several serious offences in Australia.
In the Australian media, Vigenser strongly denied any connection with the drugs and reportedly gave a statement to the Australian Federal Police.
An A$1,000,000 reward was offered for information to substantiate claims made by Ford about baggage handlers with no result. Following his return from Bali, Ford was convicted of rape. Subsequently, in prison, he was beaten and stabbed and then held in solitary protective custody.
Ford’s wife stated that this was a consequence of evidence he gave at Corby’s trial.
Alleged involvement of baggage handlers:
Corby’s legal defence suggested that airport baggage handlers had put the drugs in Corby’s bag, however, they could not provide substantive probative evidence of this.
In a June 2008 documentary, Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth, Corby’s former lawyer, Robin Tampoe, said that he fabricated the defence theory that Australian baggage handlers could have planted the drugs in Corby’s luggage and that former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer told him he suspected Corby’s brothers were behind the convicted drug smuggler’s crime.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Corby flew out of Sydney on the same day (8 October 2004) as a large shipment of cocaine was shipped out of the airport by a drug ring involving corrupt baggage handlers.
During the week of 9 May 2005 several arrests occurred in Australia related to cocaine smuggling through Sydney airport. Her defence claimed that the cannabis was planted in her bag by mistake by baggage handlers.
However, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) commissioner, Mick Keelty , stated that a key aspect of her defence was not supported by the available intelligence and that the cocaine-smuggling ring which had been discovered involved the reception of shipments of drugs from overseas, not the transportation of drugs domestically.
CCTV cameras at the Bali airport could not corroborate or contradict Corby’s account of what happened in customs.
The prosecutor said the tapes were not checked. The defence requested to see them.
Corby’s mother claims that Schapelle requested the CCTV footage be shown in court, to which the judge replied, “We will use that if we need to”. Corby’s mother claims the footage was never shown.
According to the documentary Ganja Queen, which aired on HBO, the Closed-Circuit TV Cameras (CCTV) within the airport were not operable the day of Corby’s flight.
Corby’s other luggage was not weighed, despite her requests. However, there was no obligation upon Indonesian police to do so. Her belongings were searched after she was taken into custody.
On 30 June 2011, a woman came forward who had dated a Brisbane Airport baggage handler, a colleague of whom allegedly hid a large bag of marijuana in a traveller’s bag in October 2004.
There are three possible scenarios that might explain why the drugs were planted in her bag.
The website is called The Expendable Project and every so often a new report is published taken from thousands of official and verified sources.
Schapelle Leigh Corby;
A 34 year old Australian woman, who, back in October 2004 decided to visit Bali, so she took a plane from Brisbane, switched flights in Sydney, and finally landed in Indonesia.
What happened next is quite ghastly: she was immediately apprehended by Indonesian custom agents who claimed to have found 4.2 kilos of marijuana stashed into her body board bag.
Long story short: since then she has been imprisoned in Kerobokan Jail, one of the most harsh prisons in the world, where she still resides.
But there are a few things that simply do not add up.
Corby stated right away that she had absolutely no knowledge of the drugs, and that her conviction is
absolutely unjust. Let’s examine a few key points:
- Would a drug trafficker try to smuggle such a huge amount of drugs and still go through not one, but two security checks? Keep in mind that Schapelle flew from Brisbane to Bali going through Sydney, which means that she had to go through two different airports.
- At Brisbane airport, the four bags belonging to Corby and her companions were not weighed individually, with a total weight of 65 kg being taken instead. The Bali police and customs did not record the weight of the bags, despite requests from Corby for them to do so. This means that it was impossible to prove that the drugs were planted after Corby’s check in.
- Corby and her lawyers repeatedly asked for CCTV footage of the baggage handling sections of the various airports. However, initially authorities declared that such footage never existed. Later on, it was announced that the footage did exist but was erased as it is only kept for a limited period of time.
Schapelle became a sacrificial lamb, an expendable victim whose sole purpose is to keep drug trafficking and corruption in airports well hidden.
It is quite clear that drug smugglers work closely with baggage handlers in Australian airports, as can be seen by two specific episodes (from Wikipedia):
John Ford:
John Patrick Ford, a prisoner at Port Philip Prison who was awaiting trial and was subsequently convicted on unrelated charges, was flown to Indonesia to give evidence in Corby’s defence.
Ford testified that he overheard a conversation in prison between two men and alleged that one of the men planted the marijuana in Corby’s boogie board bag in Brisbane with the intention of having another person remove it in Sydney. He stated that the drugs were owned by Ron Vigenser, who had been a prisoner at the same jail as Ford.
He stated that a mix-up resulted in the marijuana not being removed and subsequently being transported to Indonesia, all without Corby’s knowledge.
He refused to name the man who he claimed planted the drugs. The prosecution pointed out that his evidence was entirely hearsay and that he was facing trial for several serious offences in Australia.
In the Australian media, Vigenser strongly denied any connection with the drugs and reportedly gave a statement to the Australian Federal Police.
An A$1,000,000 reward was offered for information to substantiate claims made by Ford about baggage handlers with no result. Following his return from Bali, Ford was convicted of rape. Subsequently, in prison, he was beaten and stabbed and then held in solitary protective custody.
Ford’s wife stated that this was a consequence of evidence he gave at Corby’s trial.
Alleged involvement of baggage handlers:
Corby’s legal defence suggested that airport baggage handlers had put the drugs in Corby’s bag, however, they could not provide substantive probative evidence of this.
In a June 2008 documentary, Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth, Corby’s former lawyer, Robin Tampoe, said that he fabricated the defence theory that Australian baggage handlers could have planted the drugs in Corby’s luggage and that former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer told him he suspected Corby’s brothers were behind the convicted drug smuggler’s crime.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Corby flew out of Sydney on the same day (8 October 2004) as a large shipment of cocaine was shipped out of the airport by a drug ring involving corrupt baggage handlers.
During the week of 9 May 2005 several arrests occurred in Australia related to cocaine smuggling through Sydney airport. Her defence claimed that the cannabis was planted in her bag by mistake by baggage handlers.
However, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) commissioner, Mick Keelty , stated that a key aspect of her defence was not supported by the available intelligence and that the cocaine-smuggling ring which had been discovered involved the reception of shipments of drugs from overseas, not the transportation of drugs domestically.
CCTV cameras at the Bali airport could not corroborate or contradict Corby’s account of what happened in customs.
The prosecutor said the tapes were not checked. The defence requested to see them.
Corby’s mother claims that Schapelle requested the CCTV footage be shown in court, to which the judge replied, “We will use that if we need to”. Corby’s mother claims the footage was never shown.
According to the documentary Ganja Queen, which aired on HBO, the Closed-Circuit TV Cameras (CCTV) within the airport were not operable the day of Corby’s flight.
Corby’s other luggage was not weighed, despite her requests. However, there was no obligation upon Indonesian police to do so. Her belongings were searched after she was taken into custody.
On 30 June 2011, a woman came forward who had dated a Brisbane Airport baggage handler, a colleague of whom allegedly hid a large bag of marijuana in a traveller’s bag in October 2004.
There are three possible scenarios that might explain why the drugs were planted in her bag.
- The drugs were placed into her bag in Brisbane by baggage handlers just before the plane took off and were supposed to be removed in Sydney by baggage handlers as soon as the plane arrived, but were missed.
- The drugs were placed into her bag in Sydney as a decoy to enable other drugs or contraband to be moved unnoticed and this decoy was never meant to be picked up, the baggage handlers deliberately set up a passenger and sacrificed the drugs to draw the heat away from something of greater value.
- The drugs may have been planted directly by the Indonesians either in relation the Bali 9 or as an attempt to extort a bribe. This is something that occurs quite frequently in certain countries like Indonesia or Thailand, where corruption is pretty much standard.
The website is called The Expendable Project and every so often a new report is published taken from thousands of official and verified sources.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge about corruption in australia
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