- Mining consultant Barry Calverley allegedly imported 5kg of heroin
- A 68-year-old man flew to Laos and returned with a camping chair
- Perth grandfather, facing life in prison, says he was ‘deceived’
EXCLUSIVE
A Perth grandfather who says he was promised $11 million to bring “a little gift” to Australia from Laos is now accused of being a major heroin trafficker.
Barry James Calverley, 68, who returned from South East Asia in January, could now face life in prison, but his lawyers claim he was misled.
The mining industry consultant said that in a WhatsApp message he was ordered to travel to Laos and meet a man called ‘Privham’ at a hotel to collect documents.
When he was asked to take the chair in a green bag, along with an envelope, a court heard he was “suspicious” and “aware something was not right”.
When his return flight from Hanoi landed at Sydney Airport on January 24, Australian Border Force officers allegedly found $2.25 million worth of heroin inside the bag.
WA grandfather and mining industry consultant Barry Calverley (above) flew to Laos in January and returned with a Vietnamese-brand camping chair in which ABF officers allegedly found 5kg of heroin.
Calverley, 68, was allegedly promised $11 million to bring documents from Laos and says he was innocently “tricked” into taking a “small gift,” a camping chair bag that police say contained heroin worth $2.25 million.
Magistrate Mark Whelan was told Calverley was carrying documents in an envelope promising a $7.2 million reward along with the camping chair.
Legal aid lawyers said Calverley, a security officer in the oil, gas and resources industry for 30 years, “was suspicious of the ‘little gift’ and would not accept anything illegal.”
“This is a classic case of a high-ranking man being misled,” the court was told. ‘A person planning to import these substances would not carry the envelope with them.
‘(The) materials support him believing that he had a reason to go to Laos thinking he was going to get this large sum of money and then carry these documents that… any well-planned importer wouldn’t even think of having.
“They make the whole agreement nonsense. Unfortunately, he has succumbed to this belief and if he is not granted bail, he is at great risk in the prison system.’
The grandfather’s lawyer, appearing via audio-visual link on Wednesday from Macquarie maximum security prison near Dubbo, New South Wales, asked for him to be released on bail.
Downing Center Local Court heard Calverley, a wine connoisseur from Ferguson, WA, was finding life in prison difficult.
“He would be detained for a very long time before going to trial,” the court heard. “He has a long history of medical problems.”
These included heart problems, dermatitis and psoriasis, which it was argued could not be adequately treated at Macquarie Prison.
Calverley is accused of importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, which the Australian Federal Police determined was a “quantity of heroin (that) would have been sufficient for 25,000 street sales”.
Magistrate Whelan refused Calverley’s bail application and remanded him in custody on January 29 next year.
