HELICOPTER rides, a Cobra sports car and a bikini model girlfriend were all part of the glamorous life caught on Instagram of one of the alleged members of Australia’s largest cocaine cartel.
Tattooed muscle man Darren Mohr’s glittering lifestyle displayed online shows him sunning himself in exclusive locations, jetting around in a helicopter, at a yacht club during the Monaco Grand Prix and posing with luxury cars, his girlfriend, and his pet dog and macaw.
His girlfriend is in no way implicated in the alleged drug importation.
But Mr Mohr’s high life all came to an end on Tuesday when the 42-year-old was arrested and handcuffed on a footpath in Sydney’s eastern suburbs
Mr Mohr, who once owned a Bondi cafe which featured in the hit TV show Bondi Rescue, is one of 15 men now in custody after police uncovered 500kg of cocaine on a boat in Sydney’s Parsley Bay.
If convicted, all the men potentially face life imprisonment for the alleged plot to import $360 million of cocaine from South America.
The massive drug plot came unstuck because police were tipped off by a member of the public who reported in 2014 that they had seen a man they believed was acting suspiciously.
For the next 30 months, undercover detectives allegedly surveilled the men at more than a hundred meetings in Sydney cafes and parks between Bondi and Pyrmont.
The Daily Telegraph revealed that at times more than a dozen police would watch key players using encrypted BlackBerries and talking in code as they allegedly plotted the importation.
Police claim the alleged drug cartel was bringing the cocaine in from Chile via Tahiti and using fishing trawlers based at the Sydney Fish Market.
The men were arrested on Christmas Day and the three days thereafter in Sydney, Queensland and Tasmania.
Police allege that in the lead-up to the arrests, the cartel members discussed map locations, recruits, drug finance and the movement of fishing vessels to transport the narcotics.
Mr Mohr was arrested along with 1980s Roosters rugby league player John Tobin, commercial fisherman Joe Pirello, Double Bay businessman Richard Lipton, fisherman Stuart Ayrton and a New Zealand citizen, Graham Toa Toa.
The 15 men are aged in their 40s, 50s and 60s and include members of a well-respected fishing family.
The joint operation to uncover the alleged drug plot included officers from the NSW Police, Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force.
Police will allege that the cartel members planned to send out the Sydney-based fishing trawlers to meet a larger ship carrying the drugs from Chile.
NSW Police investigation co-ordinator Detective Chief Inspector Jason Smith described the lengthy police operation as extraordinary.
“From my perspective the success of this operation has been the tenacity of the entire team and all the officers involved. they have been extraordinary,” he told the Telegraph.
“My poor team has been the butt of many a joke as this investigation dragged on, often with little or no results, but ultimately we can sit back quietly now and know that we were definitely onto something.”
Police will allege a 32kg shipment of cocaine was intercepted in Fiji, but this did not deter the group, which further conspired to import three shipments between 400kg and 600kg of cocaine from South America.
The accused men are expected to next appear in a Sydney court in March.
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