Barry was promised $11million just to fly home to Australia with ‘a little gift’ in a camping bag. Now the grandfather faces life in prison after his worst fears came true at the border
- Mining consultant Barry Calverley is said to have imported 5kg of heroin
- The 68-year-old flew to Laos and returned with a camping chair
- Perth’s grandfather facing life in prison says he has been ‘duped’
EXCLUSIVE
A Perth grandfather who says he was promised $11 million to bring “a little gift” from Laos to Australia is now accused of being a major heroin trafficker.
Barry James Calverley, 68, who returned from South East Asia in January, now faces a possible life sentence but his lawyers claim he has been duped.
The mining consultant said he was instructed in a WhatsApp message to travel to Laos and meet a man named ‘Privham’ at a hotel to retrieve documents.
When asked to take the chair in a green bag along with an envelope, the court heard he was ‘suspicious’ and ‘realised something was wrong’.
When his return flight from Hanoi landed at Sydney Airport on January 24, Australian Border Police officers reportedly found $2.25 million worth of heroin in the bag.
WA grandfather and mining consultant Barry Calverley (above) flew to Laos in January and returned with a Vietnamese-branded camping chair in which ABF officers reportedly found 5kg of heroin
Calverley, 68, reportedly promised $11 million to bring back documents from Laos and says he was innocently “tricked” into taking a “small gift”: a camping chair bag in which he claims the police had $2.25 million worth of heroin.
Magistrate Mark Whelan was told Calverley had documents in an envelope promising him a $7.2 million reward along with the camp chair.
Lawyers for Legal Aid said Calverley, a 30-year-old security officer in the oil, gas and resources sector, was suspicious of “the little gift” and would not accept anything illegal.
“This is a classic case of a senior man being duped,” the court was told. ‘Someone planning to import these substances would not have the envelope with them.
‘(The) materials support him in believing that he had a reason to go to Laos, thinking that he would get this very large sum of money and then carry these documents where… any well-planned importer wouldn’t even be there would think about having that.
‘They are making nonsense of the whole arrangement. Unfortunately, he has succumbed to this conviction and if he is not granted bail he will be at great risk in the prison system.”
The grandfather’s lawyer, who appeared via audiovisual link from the maximum security Macquarie Prison near Dubbo NSW on Wednesday, argued for his release on bail.
Downing Center Local Court heard that Calverley, a wine connoisseur from Ferguson, WA, found life in prison difficult.
“He would be held in custody for a very long time before appearing in court,” the court heard. “He has a long history of medical concerns.”
These included heart problems, dermatitis and psoriasis, which it was claimed could not be adequately treated at Macquarie prison.
Calverley is accused of importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, which Australian Federal Police said was a “quantity of heroin (that) would have been enough for 25,000 street deals.”
Magistrate Whelan rejected Calverley’s bail application and ordered him to appear in custody on January 29 next year.