# US federal prison, the final drug run & the price of freedom: Tim Smith Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 12 Oct 2026, 54 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/2fdd7b5e-3838-42f3-bf83-b4dd017401e9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

The $100K-a-day runs are over.In Part 2, former helicopter pilot Tim Smith sits down with Gary Jubelin for what happened after the ground crew came under investigation and led straight to him. Tim breaks down his final border run, clearing the trees by two feet at 100 miles an hour, not realising he’d been spotted from above and the moment on landing: “Mr. Smith, we’ve been waiting for you for quite a while. Welcome to the United States.” From there the fall is fast: told he was facing a minimum of 87 years and a maximum of 113 years, hit with 36 counts, and a first night in US custody he describes as sheer terror. And the real cost wasn’t the sentence. While locked up, Tim learns his mum had been dead two weeks and already buried, then gets the news about his brother David You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:18] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Welcome
[0:47] Speaker 1: back to part two of my chat with former maths
[0:49] Speaker 1: groom and international drug trafficker, Tim Smith. He tells how
[0:53] Speaker 1: his drug running business came to a crashing end and
[0:56] Speaker 1: talks openly about his time inside the notorious US prison system.
[1:01] Speaker 1: Tim also shares what he's doing now and his advice
[1:05] Speaker 1: for anyone tempted by the easy money of running drugs. Plus,
[1:09] Speaker 1: and I'm excited about this, we also get the inside
[1:12] Speaker 1: gossip on what really happens behind the scenes on Married
[1:15] Speaker 1: at First Sight. Tim Smith, welcome back. Part two, I
[1:20] Speaker 1: Catch Killers.
[1:21] Speaker 2: Thank you. Glad to be back.
[1:22] Speaker 1: Okay, well, you talked up your skills flying helicopters and
[1:27] Speaker 1: making a shitload of money, but it did come unstuck.
[1:31] Speaker 1: The wheels came off the wagon. You were quite as
[1:34] Speaker 1: good as you thought you was.
[1:36] Speaker 2: Look, ironically enough, it wasn't me that brought the organization down.
[1:40] Speaker 2: It was the ground crew that has ultimately brought the
[1:43] Speaker 2: organization down. Those guys were hot, meaning they were under investigation,
[1:48] Speaker 2: and they just led them to me.
[1:50] Speaker 1: How did it play out? How did you get caught?
[1:53] Speaker 2: Look, the first ground crew, I know that they all ran.
[1:57] Speaker 2: A couple of them ran to Spain, a couple of
[1:59] Speaker 2: them down to Mexico. And so then my contact was
[2:03] Speaker 2: going to hook me up with this new ground crew.
[2:05] Speaker 2: And when you say ground crew, they're not the surfacing
[2:08] Speaker 2: your helicopter. The ground crew are the ones that are
[2:10] Speaker 2: bringing the drugs and coordinating that. It's only the drop-off
[2:14] Speaker 2: crew in the US. You're doing the transportation.
[2:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[2:17] Speaker 2: So we had a meeting up in Abbotsford from this
[2:19] Speaker 2: new crew that were down in the US and he
[2:22] Speaker 2: was an engineer for Boeing aircraft.
[2:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[2:25] Speaker 2: And I remember when I had lunch with him, I
[2:27] Speaker 2: didn't like him. I don't know what it was about him.
[2:29] Speaker 2: I just did not like him. Didn't click. Didn't like
[2:32] Speaker 2: his stories. His story didn't add up. And then when
[2:35] Speaker 2: I went back and talked to the guy that introduced us,
[2:38] Speaker 2: I said, I don't like.
[2:39] Speaker 1: You, mate. Yeah.
[2:40] Speaker 2: And he said, why? I said, it's just a feeling
[2:43] Speaker 2: I got. He said some stupid things at that meeting
[2:45] Speaker 2: that you wouldn't say in such a a big meeting,
[2:48] Speaker 2: and I don't think he's got the stones to do this.
[2:52] Speaker 2: And then he told me, I said, so give me
[2:54] Speaker 2: some information that I don't end up in prison with
[2:57] Speaker 2: this guy's name on my paperwork, that I've got some
[3:00] Speaker 2: dirt on him. And he goes, so then he laid
[3:02] Speaker 2: it out what they used to do in boats. And
[3:05] Speaker 2: he goes, no, we did in boats for three years.
[3:07] Speaker 2: He's made millions. He just wants to get back in
[3:09] Speaker 2: the game. I said, oh, fair enough. And on that
[3:12] Speaker 2: first trip, everything went wrong that morning at the airport.
[3:17] Speaker 2: Couldn't get fuel. Went late. I told them I didn't
[3:20] Speaker 2: want to go, but they said, everyone's in place. We've
[3:22] Speaker 2: got to go. And I just didn't have a good feeling.
[3:26] Speaker 2: Tessa didn't have a good feeling and everything was going
[3:28] Speaker 2: wrong that morning, but they wanted me to go. So
[3:31] Speaker 2: off I go, pick the drugs up, head across the border,
[3:34] Speaker 2: flying down the mountain. I was going too fast that
[3:37] Speaker 2: morning and I started doing these big darts and then
[3:41] Speaker 2: like top gun around this area. Around this pit and
[3:44] Speaker 2: then dropped it in, threw the bags out. And I
[3:48] Speaker 2: still remember taking off. I thought, let's get the hell
[3:51] Speaker 2: out of here. I just don't have a good feeling
[3:53] Speaker 2: about today.
[3:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[3:54] Speaker 2: I backed the helicopter up and it's almost like that
[3:56] Speaker 2: back to the future scene where I took off and
[3:59] Speaker 2: I just nosed it too hard in the beginning and
[4:02] Speaker 2: I started pulling up on the collective and realized we're
[4:04] Speaker 2: doing 80 miles an hour. Yeah. And the trees, I
[4:08] Speaker 2: haven't actually gained any altitude yet and the trees are
[4:10] Speaker 2: coming up. And at this point, I can't. I can't
[4:13] Speaker 2: stop the helicopter.
[4:15] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[4:15] Speaker 2: I just pulled everything with the collective. And I reckon
[4:19] Speaker 2: I cleared the trees by about two feet. And by
[4:22] Speaker 2: then I'm doing 100 miles an hour.
[4:23] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[4:24] Speaker 2: And I just sort of looked back and went, fucking
[4:27] Speaker 2: good luck with that, boys. And, yeah, that morning I
[4:31] Speaker 2: was spotted going across the border but hadn't realised there
[4:33] Speaker 2: was something up there higher. A drone or something had
[4:36] Speaker 2: footage of me. Yeah.
[4:38] Speaker 1: And so they didn't grab you when you.
[4:41] Speaker 2: Landed that time? They didn't grab me. They went and
[4:44] Speaker 2: stopped that convoy of trucks on the side of the road.
[4:46] Speaker 1: And there would be nothing in the paperwork that would
[4:49] Speaker 1: link you to the helicopter, I would imagine?
[4:52] Speaker 2: No, but when I landed- You're not signing for it.
[4:55] Speaker 2: They had split investigations going at that point. They pulled
[4:57] Speaker 2: those guys over on the side of the road and
[5:00] Speaker 2: asked them. And that guy that I didn't like, he
[5:04] Speaker 2: didn't even let them look in the back before he
[5:06] Speaker 2: He told, rolled everybody. He was 45 minutes, he was
[5:11] Speaker 2: on the side of the road giving his witness statement
[5:13] Speaker 2: before they even looked in the back of the car.
[5:16] Speaker 2: You didn't even hold out, talk to your lawyer.
[5:18] Speaker 1: Just take a chance.
[5:19] Speaker 2: Just take your chance with the lawyer. Don't give them everything.
[5:24] Speaker 2: But yeah, he gave them everything on the side of
[5:25] Speaker 2: the road. I got pulled up in Canada. And it
[5:28] Speaker 2: was ironic that that morning, because years later I would
[5:32] Speaker 2: be charged with people smuggling because of that morning.
[5:35] Speaker 1: What happened?
[5:35] Speaker 2: That morning when I dropped the drugs off, what I
[5:37] Speaker 2: forgot to say, and sometimes hard piecing it all together,
[5:41] Speaker 2: but it wasn't until I got charged years later in Canada.
[5:45] Speaker 2: That morning I got instructions to head over to another
[5:47] Speaker 2: field and pick a guy up under a tree. And
[5:50] Speaker 2: he was a big drug kingpin and needed to get
[5:52] Speaker 2: up into Canada and have some meetings but can't get
[5:54] Speaker 2: through the border because he's got a record. So I
[5:57] Speaker 2: picked him up. We flew back to Canada. I had
[6:00] Speaker 2: Terry and this guy on board. We thought he jumped
[6:03] Speaker 2: out at some point because all the doors opened, but
[6:06] Speaker 2: apparently he didn't close it and he thought that was funny.
[6:08] Speaker 2: I thought, I've just lost this guy. How am I
[6:10] Speaker 2: going to explain? He jumped out on the top of
[6:12] Speaker 2: a mountain and he's no longer here. I don't know
[6:15] Speaker 2: what happened to him. It wouldn't have been good. But anyway, years,
[6:18] Speaker 2: I dropped him off. We got pulled up on the
[6:20] Speaker 2: side of the road, which I thought was a little
[6:21] Speaker 2: bit weird. The RCMP pulled me up and just wanted
[6:24] Speaker 2: ID from me. They couldn't ID anyone else in the car,
[6:27] Speaker 2: just for me. And they said, oh, you know, you're
[6:28] Speaker 2: going a bit fast. But they just wanted to start
[6:31] Speaker 2: linking it all up. I should have been smart enough
[6:34] Speaker 2: to link it up. I had this bloke sitting next
[6:36] Speaker 2: to me. I didn't know what his name was. But
[6:39] Speaker 2: years later, I'd be charged for people smuggling, for smuggling
[6:42] Speaker 2: him up into Canada.
[6:42] Speaker 1: When you were inside, you were charged with it?
[6:45] Speaker 2: Eight years later.
[6:46] Speaker 1: Oh, right.
[6:46] Speaker 2: When I got deported from Canada.
[6:48] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:48] Speaker 2: Then they hit me with people smuggling and serious criminality
[6:51] Speaker 2: for that one guy one day.
[6:53] Speaker 1: That sounds heavy. Yeah.
[6:55] Speaker 2: And he actually went back to the US the next day.
[6:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:58] Speaker 2: But the fact is, I got him across the border
[7:00] Speaker 2: the day before.
[7:01] Speaker 1: Okay. So the technicality.
[7:02] Speaker 2: The technicality is you're a people smuggler.
[7:04] Speaker 1: Okay.
[7:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[7:05] Speaker 1: You had to go back to Australia at some point
[7:08] Speaker 1: in time when the heat was starting to be on,
[7:10] Speaker 1: but that was for a family business?
[7:12] Speaker 2: Right. So what actually happened is it's sort of the
[7:17] Speaker 2: wheels are coming off the wagon. We're going to get
[7:20] Speaker 2: another landing crew. Yeah. And that was taking time. But
[7:25] Speaker 2: in the meantime, I got a phone call in the
[7:27] Speaker 2: middle of the night from a family member, from my brother,
[7:30] Speaker 2: and he said, you better get home. Mum's dying. And
[7:33] Speaker 2: I just went, I'd just spoken to her the day before.
[7:37] Speaker 2: She sounded fine. And I just couldn't compute it that day. Yeah,
[7:42] Speaker 2: it was about 3 in the morning. And ironically, I'd
[7:44] Speaker 2: counted all my money the night before. So I had
[7:47] Speaker 2: money all over this apartment. But it's what you focus on.
[7:52] Speaker 2: And by 7 o'clock in the morning, I'd bought a
[7:54] Speaker 2: ticket to get back to Australia. And by 9 o'clock,
[7:58] Speaker 2: I'm on that flight.
[7:59] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[7:59] Speaker 2: And whatever was in that apartment– I didn't care. I
[8:03] Speaker 2: put a key in the door and that was it.
[8:06] Speaker 2: I was gone. And the first flight was through San Francisco.
[8:10] Speaker 2: And I remember the U.S. authorities held me up for
[8:17] Speaker 2: a long time in San Francisco. And I'll always thank
[8:20] Speaker 2: the U.S.
[8:21] Speaker 1: For this.
[8:22] Speaker 2: The authorities or Susan Rowe, which was my district attorney
[8:26] Speaker 2: or prosecuting federal attorney, she actually phoned the hospitals. to
[8:31] Speaker 2: see whether my mum was actually dying. And they said, yes,
[8:34] Speaker 2: she is. And she said, let him go. We'll get
[8:37] Speaker 2: him on the way back.
[8:38] Speaker 1: Oh, that was decent.
[8:39] Speaker 2: So that's a bit of compassion there. And I found
[8:42] Speaker 2: that out later. And I've got no qualms with, you know,
[8:46] Speaker 2: I broke a law in a country, but they showed compassion.
[8:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's a bit of decency because they could
[8:51] Speaker 1: have played that against you.
[8:52] Speaker 2: They could have taken me right there and then. They
[8:55] Speaker 2: actually did due diligence and said, he'll be back and
[8:57] Speaker 2: we'll get him. And so I went home. Yeah, mum
[9:02] Speaker 2: had had a brain aneurysm and she was looking pretty tough.
[9:06] Speaker 2: She was only 49 at the time.
[9:07] Speaker 1: She's that young, isn't she?
[9:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I stayed about a week. I was talking
[9:11] Speaker 2: to my brother. I was talking to dad. I'm getting
[9:14] Speaker 2: a lot of pressure from Canada to come back and
[9:16] Speaker 2: just do a couple of days' work.
[9:18] Speaker 1: Your crew.
[9:18] Speaker 2: My crew, yeah, because I'd set all this stuff up.
[9:22] Speaker 2: And I said to dad, if mum goes– I'm going to,
[9:26] Speaker 2: you know, I was sort of the eldest. I've got
[9:28] Speaker 2: to help the family get through this and I might
[9:30] Speaker 2: move back to Australia for six months and just, you know,
[9:33] Speaker 2: we'll figure it out. But she started getting better over
[9:36] Speaker 2: the time I was there. So I said to my
[9:39] Speaker 2: brother and dad, I'm going to head back to Canada,
[9:43] Speaker 2: but I'm going to be back in two days. And
[9:46] Speaker 2: the doctor said, if she gets better, we're going to
[9:47] Speaker 2: move her to Brisbane. So I just figured I had
[9:50] Speaker 2: two-day run, get back, one-day run, flying back, two days work,
[9:55] Speaker 2: and then head back. But that's not how the plan
[9:57] Speaker 2: was going to take place.
[9:58] Speaker 1: What happened then?
[10:00] Speaker 2: When I got into LA, I still remember the Qantas
[10:04] Speaker 2: captain said, could everyone have their passports upon exiting the aircraft?
[10:09] Speaker 2: And I thought, that is really weird.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, not normal.
[10:12] Speaker 2: It's just not normal. So I got my passport out,
[10:15] Speaker 2: and then I walked to the door, and then I
[10:16] Speaker 2: handed it to the US Customs officer, and then It's
[10:20] Speaker 2: almost like time stops. That's when the sea of blue jackets,
[10:24] Speaker 2: and I didn't understand what ICE meant, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
[10:29] Speaker 2: And they just said, Mr. Smith, we've been waiting for
[10:31] Speaker 2: you for quite a while. Welcome to the United States.
[10:35] Speaker 1: Okay. So that's when the next adventure began.
[10:38] Speaker 2: That's when the next adventure started. You know, I was
[10:42] Speaker 2: about eight hours at the airport there, just waiting to
[10:45] Speaker 2: get transported.
[10:47] Speaker 1: Did you know what it was about? Had they put
[10:49] Speaker 1: the allegations or?
[10:50] Speaker 2: I walked into a room. Yeah. And I'd stayed calm
[10:53] Speaker 2: up until I got into this room and they said,
[10:55] Speaker 2: take your belt off and your shoelaces out.
[10:57] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[10:58] Speaker 2: You're charged with 36 counts of international drug smuggling.
[11:02] Speaker 1: Sounds heavy.
[11:03] Speaker 2: And I just went, oh, fuck, that's not good. 36 counts. Yeah.
[11:08] Speaker 2: I'll give it to the police. They knew every frigging load.
[11:12] Speaker 1: That went across. Is that how many trips you made?
[11:14] Speaker 2: 36 trips, yeah.
[11:15] Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
[11:16] Speaker 2: Yep, they knew every trip. So they're not stupid, I'll
[11:20] Speaker 2: tell you that. No, no. And so a funny thing happened.
[11:26] Speaker 2: Like this is my introductory into prison.
[11:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't think of a lot of other funny things,
[11:31] Speaker 1: but go on.
[11:32] Speaker 2: Into the federal penitentiary system in the United States and
[11:36] Speaker 2: that small boy in central Queensland. I'm now going to
[11:40] Speaker 2: be transported. They're putting handcuffs on me and I remember
[11:43] Speaker 2: this little ice agent. I said little ice agent. Yeah.
[11:46] Speaker 2: Once he put the handcuffs on, he said, look, we're
[11:47] Speaker 2: going to walk outside this door and if you try anything,
[11:50] Speaker 2: I'm going to fuck you up. And I just thought, okay, well,
[11:54] Speaker 2: I'm not going to try anything. Welcome to America.
[11:57] Speaker 1: You don't have to be so impolite. Right.
[11:59] Speaker 2: He was literally going to smash me into the ground
[12:01] Speaker 2: like if I tried anything. Where am I going to run?
[12:04] Speaker 2: Like down the ramp? So we got into the, and
[12:09] Speaker 2: I'll say this is funny because this is how naive
[12:11] Speaker 2: I was. This is Tim, moron Tim, keep going through it.
[12:15] Speaker 2: We got into this car.
[12:17] Speaker 1: I'm in the middle.
[12:18] Speaker 2: I've got a nice agent here, one here, one detective here,
[12:21] Speaker 2: and one here.
[12:21] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[12:22] Speaker 2: And off we go. And LA is a big place.
[12:25] Speaker 2: So you're driving along and they're talking about Mexican food.
[12:27] Speaker 2: I haven't eaten food for so long because the flight
[12:31] Speaker 2: over was shit and I was already going to get
[12:33] Speaker 2: Mexican when I got into LA anyway. I love Mexican food.
[12:36] Speaker 2: They're talking about Mexican food and I'm like, yeah, I'm
[12:38] Speaker 2: going to get the fajitas. I'm mostly going to get
[12:41] Speaker 2: a side of beans. I could really do with a
[12:44] Speaker 2: diet coke. Like I've already got my mental map.
[12:47] Speaker 1: You are a dickhead.
[12:48] Speaker 2: And then they started talking about the hotel they'll check
[12:51] Speaker 2: out in the morning. I'm like, I don't care when
[12:54] Speaker 2: we check out. I just assumed they were taking me
[12:58] Speaker 2: back to the hotel. We were going to have some Mexican.
[13:02] Speaker 1: Beautiful.
[13:02] Speaker 2: They were just going to lock me up in a
[13:04] Speaker 2: room next to them and then we'll head off to
[13:06] Speaker 2: Seattle the next day. It wasn't until we wheeled around
[13:09] Speaker 2: the corner and I just seen these massive gates and
[13:12] Speaker 2: I said, where are we? They go, jail? I said,
[13:15] Speaker 2: what are we doing here? I thought we were going for,
[13:18] Speaker 2: and I actually said, I thought we were going for Mexican.
[13:20] Speaker 1: They were hooked at you.
[13:22] Speaker 2: They're like, we're going for Mexican, dickhead. We are. You're
[13:24] Speaker 2: going to jail. And yeah, that was a rude awakening.
[13:29] Speaker 1: You're saying it with a smile on your face. Is
[13:31] Speaker 1: that your first time in custody? First time in custody.
[13:34] Speaker 2: Okay. LA County Jail.
[13:36] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[13:37] Speaker 2: Not even in the feds because they didn't have enough
[13:39] Speaker 2: room that night. The feds flowed over into county.
[13:43] Speaker 1: Now, I don't know if it's what we see on
[13:46] Speaker 1: the media, but LA County Jail doesn't seem like a
[13:48] Speaker 1: place you'd be going in too happily.
[13:51] Speaker 2: It's worse. You can't even imagine the sheer terror of
[13:55] Speaker 2: that night.
[13:55] Speaker 1: Well, I've articulated the fear of you're going to be
[13:59] Speaker 1: stood over, you're going to be bashed, you're going to
[14:01] Speaker 1: be killed. It's the whole range of things if you
[14:04] Speaker 1: go in there. And you have no idea. And as...
[14:08] Speaker 1: greater criminal as you and your mate Tezza are, I
[14:11] Speaker 1: don't think you'd be looked at as a newbie in
[14:15] Speaker 1: that type of situation.
[14:18] Speaker 2: Look, your first 10 days, I don't care what anyone says,
[14:21] Speaker 2: your first 10 days, you're literally, one, you're not taking
[14:24] Speaker 2: a shit because they take away every piece of dignity
[14:28] Speaker 2: from you. When you walk into that first jail cell,
[14:31] Speaker 2: there are 13 toilets lined up on that wall. There
[14:34] Speaker 2: are 13 shower heads lined up on the other wall.
[14:37] Speaker 2: There is no walls in between. These four are for whites.
[14:42] Speaker 2: These four are blacks. These four are for Mexicans. And
[14:46] Speaker 2: that last one up there is for everybody else. Right.
[14:49] Speaker 2: Don't use the blacks. Don't use the Mexicans. You're in
[14:53] Speaker 2: a whirlwind.
[14:55] Speaker 1: And the race divide too in there. It's very much
[14:58] Speaker 1: in the prison system there or it is here as well. But-
[15:02] Speaker 1: How did you navigate your way around? Did anyone– did
[15:04] Speaker 1: you befriend anyone or did anyone– Oh, lots of– In
[15:08] Speaker 1: the early days, I'm talking here.
[15:11] Speaker 2: You know, I went to a federal gladiator tank in
[15:14] Speaker 2: San Bernardino. I got transported out to San Bernardino from L.A. County,
[15:19] Speaker 2: and San Bernardino is quite a famous place. It's home
[15:22] Speaker 2: of the Hells Angels. McDonald's started in San Bernardino. It's
[15:25] Speaker 2: the home of the Bloods as well.
[15:27] Speaker 1: Oh, right. Where they sent you. They sent me out.
[15:29] Speaker 1: And the Gladiator tank. Now, for a description of a prison,
[15:33] Speaker 1: that's a bloodbath.
[15:34] Speaker 2: It's actually just a tank within the county jail.
[15:39] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:39] Speaker 2: And it's for the overrun of federal inmates, and the
[15:42] Speaker 2: county will look after feed and housing. But they don't
[15:45] Speaker 2: want to put any staff on it. So it's literally
[15:48] Speaker 2: just a cubicle tank. cube tank. It's got a concrete roof.
[15:52] Speaker 1: Four walls. You're not going to escape.
[15:53] Speaker 2: No, there's not one window in the joint. There's only
[15:56] Speaker 2: one door in and out. So they're not big on
[15:57] Speaker 2: fire pretension safety. Like if a fire breaks out, we're
[16:01] Speaker 2: all buggered.
[16:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[16:03] Speaker 2: And then you just open that up and the guard,
[16:05] Speaker 2: you've got your bedding with you and the guard just
[16:08] Speaker 2: looks at you and says, good luck. And you just
[16:11] Speaker 2: walk in and there's 180 guys in that room, you know,
[16:14] Speaker 2: bunk stack three high.
[16:15] Speaker 1: Yeah. You got through it. What skills do you, like
[16:19] Speaker 1: you're a good communicator, so you're not going to piss
[16:22] Speaker 1: people off to start with, but what skills helped you
[16:25] Speaker 1: survive in those real early days?
[16:27] Speaker 2: Negotiating.
[16:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[16:28] Speaker 2: And just, you know, God gave you two ears and
[16:32] Speaker 2: one mouth and use them in that direction.
[16:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[16:35] Speaker 2: Do a lot of listening, not a lot of talking. Okay.
[16:38] Speaker 2: You know, read a room, read an area. Yeah. Ask questions.
[16:43] Speaker 2: Don't piss anyone off. And... Yeah, just keep your head low.
[16:48] Speaker 1: Any fuck-ups you did in the first early period of
[16:53] Speaker 1: going in there because you were so naive to it?
[16:55] Speaker 1: It's not a world that you would have really known.
[16:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, I had some incredible moments in time. Essentially, I
[17:04] Speaker 2: was sitting on a– I start my talk, I was
[17:06] Speaker 2: sitting on a prison bus. I was chained to a
[17:09] Speaker 2: bloke next to me. Yeah. waiting to get onto Conair,
[17:12] Speaker 2: which was a 727 with the motors up high and
[17:16] Speaker 2: then the steps came down from the back.
[17:18] Speaker 1: Did you offer to fly it?
[17:19] Speaker 2: I reckon I could have flown it, but it was
[17:21] Speaker 2: that movie Nick Cage, Conair.
[17:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, Conair.
[17:24] Speaker 2: I was sitting directly on that plane, I mean on
[17:28] Speaker 2: that prison bus where Nick Cage was, chained to this
[17:31] Speaker 2: guy from Alabama and I struck up a conversation with him. Yeah.
[17:35] Speaker 2: He's doing six life sentences.
[17:37] Speaker 1: What's he done?
[17:38] Speaker 2: Well, clearly he's murdered six people. I thought, why couldn't
[17:41] Speaker 2: I have got the bank robber at the front? Why
[17:42] Speaker 2: did I forget this?
[17:43] Speaker 1: Isn't there a nice fraud person I could speak to?
[17:45] Speaker 2: Why did I get this nutjob next to me? He said,
[17:47] Speaker 2: I don't give a shit. There's a lot more they
[17:49] Speaker 2: haven't found out. And I'm just like, God, I've got to.
[17:52] Speaker 2: And I'm chained to his waist.
[17:54] Speaker 1: So this is the full belt, the. Handcuffed to his waist.
[17:58] Speaker 2: His waist. And my leg was chained to his leg
[18:01] Speaker 2: as well.
[18:01] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:02] Speaker 2: There's no mucking around.
[18:03] Speaker 1: And it looks like, I've seen Con Air and it's
[18:06] Speaker 1: not dissimilar to what you see on that.
[18:08] Speaker 2: I watched a doco the other night and ironically enough,
[18:11] Speaker 2: they were talking about Charlie Bings and he was head
[18:14] Speaker 2: of the Aryan Brotherhood.
[18:16] Speaker 1: Okay.
[18:16] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[18:17] Speaker 1: That was the white.
[18:18] Speaker 2: White supremacist group. He's currently at ADX in Florence, Colorado.
[18:23] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:23] Speaker 2: And that day I watched a movie scene because if
[18:27] Speaker 2: you listen to this doco on YouTube, that day this
[18:31] Speaker 2: convoy of US Marshals with one van came out. It
[18:34] Speaker 2: was actually for Charlie Bing or for Bing.
[18:36] Speaker 1: Ah, right, yeah.
[18:37] Speaker 2: And he just got convicted of 13 murders and they
[18:40] Speaker 2: were putting him onto my plane or the plane I
[18:43] Speaker 2: was going on to take him back to ADX.
[18:44] Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
[18:46] Speaker 2: And once he was loaded on the plane, it was
[18:48] Speaker 2: like Hannibal Lecter, about 100 marshals all left.
[18:51] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:51] Speaker 2: And then the rest of us peasants, we dealt with
[18:55] Speaker 2: the other 50 marshals and they really liked their shotguns.
[18:58] Speaker 2: They had no problems pointing it at your head. Yeah.
[19:01] Speaker 2: And they do not like jokes.
[19:03] Speaker 1: There is something about the US prison system that, yeah,
[19:07] Speaker 1: and it's the perception that, you see in the media
[19:10] Speaker 1: and documentaries and read about and all that, but they
[19:14] Speaker 1: play for keeps.
[19:14] Speaker 2: They're not joking around. They take transportation, the US Marshals
[19:19] Speaker 2: take their job very seriously, and it's nothing but weapons.
[19:24] Speaker 1: So I would imagine, and yeah, I think you'd be
[19:28] Speaker 1: bullshitting if you said you weren't. You would have been
[19:31] Speaker 1: concerned and scared is not too strong a word.
[19:34] Speaker 2: Oh, shit scared.
[19:35] Speaker 1: Right to start with going in there. When did you
[19:38] Speaker 1: feel like Like I'd imagine if I just get through
[19:41] Speaker 1: one day, if I can survive today without being stabbed
[19:44] Speaker 1: or bashed or whatever, when did you start to feel like, okay,
[19:48] Speaker 1: I'm going to get through this?
[19:50] Speaker 2: You know, your first day on court's pretty scary.
[19:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[19:52] Speaker 2: And that's the first real test of mental strength because
[19:58] Speaker 2: there was another helicopter pilot that got busted with the
[20:01] Speaker 2: helicopter in Blaine. He was a 23-year-old guy actually from
[20:05] Speaker 2: New Zealand. His story's on YouTube as well. He went
[20:08] Speaker 2: to his arraignment, the same arraignment that I went to,
[20:12] Speaker 2: and I got told I was going to do a
[20:14] Speaker 2: minimum of 87 years and a maximum of 113 years.
[20:18] Speaker 2: And my legs come out from underneath.
[20:20] Speaker 1: That's what you were told.
[20:21] Speaker 2: That's what the judge.
[20:23] Speaker 1: Oh, right. Okay.
[20:24] Speaker 2: The judge says, you've got 36 counts of international smuggling.
[20:27] Speaker 1: You look at it. Well, I suppose if they gave
[20:28] Speaker 1: you a cumulative census.
[20:29] Speaker 2: If they just, and that's what they do. They just
[20:31] Speaker 2: stack it up.
[20:32] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[20:32] Speaker 2: And my lawyer said, stand up. And I said, you
[20:35] Speaker 2: don't understand. My legs don't work. I just, I just calculate.
[20:38] Speaker 2: I'm going to be 107 by the, he goes, they're
[20:40] Speaker 2: just trying to scare you. Mission accomplished. I'm. currently scared.
[20:44] Speaker 1: Your honor, I'm scared. I'm shitting myself. Yeah.
[20:47] Speaker 2: So your lawyers just can't stand up. We're going to
[20:49] Speaker 2: get this knocked down. And you don't know, but that's
[20:53] Speaker 2: the whole system is to put fear into you. My
[20:57] Speaker 2: lawyer didn't come and see me after that. He just,
[20:59] Speaker 2: I'll see you next week. He didn't explain that this
[21:02] Speaker 2: is just a scare tactic. I went back and had
[21:04] Speaker 2: to control that emotion and control that fear. that I'm
[21:07] Speaker 2: going to do 100 years. What's the point in going?
[21:10] Speaker 1: So you're looking around, this is my life for the
[21:12] Speaker 1: rest of my life.
[21:13] Speaker 2: Potentially the next 100 years, yeah. And that young guy
[21:16] Speaker 2: got the same message. Yeah. He went back and hung
[21:18] Speaker 2: himself that night in the cell.
[21:20] Speaker 1: Seriously.
[21:21] Speaker 2: He didn't give it the time that it needed to
[21:24] Speaker 2: just go, I'm in a pickle here. Yeah. Like there's
[21:27] Speaker 2: a way out. Fear just overcome and it doesn't take much.
[21:31] Speaker 1: No, it's sad, you know, and people say, well, yeah,
[21:35] Speaker 1: if you've done the crime, you deserve to be inside.
[21:37] Speaker 1: But that type of thing that life's not worth living on.
[21:42] Speaker 1: And that's why your belt's taken, your shoelaces are taken
[21:44] Speaker 1: because it's so prevalent. And the cells are set up
[21:47] Speaker 1: so you can't take your own life. So if people
[21:50] Speaker 1: think jail's a soft place, it's set up so people
[21:53] Speaker 1: can't take their lives. That's the type of pressure.
[21:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is pressure and you've got to work
[21:59] Speaker 2: through that for the next six to nine months of
[22:02] Speaker 2: negotiating your sentence because you're in the federal system now
[22:06] Speaker 2: and they have a 99.2% conviction rate.
[22:09] Speaker 1: God bless America. Yeah.
[22:10] Speaker 2: So if you're indicted, you're convicted. Yeah. There was 122
[22:14] Speaker 2: guys in my pod, two took it to trial, 120
[22:16] Speaker 2: guys pled out. Just meaning, yep.
[22:21] Speaker 1: So they just jam you up. Basically, you've been charged.
[22:25] Speaker 1: You'd be an idiot to take it to trial.
[22:27] Speaker 2: Right. But you've always got some narcissist that goes, I'm
[22:30] Speaker 2: going to beat him. Actually, there were three people that
[22:33] Speaker 2: took it to trial. These two guys and Smiling Richard Fable.
[22:37] Speaker 2: Richard Fable was the head of the Hells Angels for-
[22:40] Speaker 2: for the whole of America. Yeah. And he was looking
[22:42] Speaker 2: at triple life for machine gun murders, but he got
[22:45] Speaker 2: off it. But when you're looking at triple life, you've
[22:47] Speaker 2: got nothing else. Yeah, you might as well go for it.
[22:49] Speaker 2: These other two got off it. One guy got off
[22:51] Speaker 2: it for three years. The other guy got off it
[22:53] Speaker 2: for five years.
[22:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[22:54] Speaker 2: So the guy with three years took it to trial, lost.
[22:57] Speaker 2: He got 19 years. The other guy didn't take the
[23:00] Speaker 2: five years, took it to trial, and he got 23 years. Oh, gee.
[23:04] Speaker 1: That'd be hard to live with.
[23:05] Speaker 2: So are you willing to gamble? Yeah. And- They've got
[23:10] Speaker 2: a 99.2% conviction rate.
[23:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to look at the odds.
[23:14] Speaker 2: And it's really funny as you get more comfortable in
[23:17] Speaker 2: there and guys coming in getting busted and then they're
[23:20] Speaker 2: trying to explain their way out. I was just laughing
[23:23] Speaker 2: at one point because it's like, hey, I'm not the jury, man.
[23:27] Speaker 2: We're all innocent in here.
[23:30] Speaker 1: I could imagine. that's bullshit because this didn't happen.
[23:34] Speaker 2: I didn't know.
[23:34] Speaker 1: Your eyes would start to glaze over.
[23:36] Speaker 2: I didn't know that there were 50 kilos of ecstasy
[23:39] Speaker 2: in the gas tank even though I had to fill
[23:41] Speaker 2: up every 15 minutes.
[23:43] Speaker 1: Yeah. You knew.
[23:44] Speaker 2: Like just take your licks, do your time and get out.
[23:48] Speaker 1: So you got, finally you got the right advice that
[23:52] Speaker 1: if you nodded to it and pled you would be
[23:55] Speaker 1: getting in the range of what did you expect?
[23:58] Speaker 2: Originally, I expected one to two years. Yeah. That's what
[24:01] Speaker 2: the prosecutor, because I was the last of the light
[24:04] Speaker 2: sentences for helicopter weed pilots. He'd already sentenced one guy
[24:09] Speaker 2: a couple months earlier to just over a year, and
[24:12] Speaker 2: I switched judges to go in front of Judge Kuhnhauer
[24:15] Speaker 2: because he didn't give a shit about weed.
[24:17] Speaker 1: And they looked at you and your role in the organization.
[24:20] Speaker 1: You were the transporter.
[24:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just a pilot.
[24:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
[24:23] Speaker 2: And then- Susan Rowe was happy with that. And then
[24:27] Speaker 2: two days before I was about to get sentenced, they
[24:29] Speaker 2: pulled my deal.
[24:30] Speaker 1: Right.
[24:31] Speaker 2: And then they wanted 36 months to 60 months, something
[24:34] Speaker 2: like that. They wanted three to five years. Yeah. I
[24:36] Speaker 2: was pretty pissed off at that point because we had
[24:40] Speaker 2: a deal.
[24:40] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[24:41] Speaker 2: But the US can change that deal. But look, the
[24:44] Speaker 2: judge upheld the deal. And he said, yep, this was
[24:47] Speaker 2: the deal that we agreed to. So he gave me
[24:50] Speaker 2: a little over a year. How long had you been
[24:52] Speaker 2: in at this stage?
[24:53] Speaker 1: Nine months. Right. Yeah.
[24:55] Speaker 2: But they got some extra time out of me. Susan
[24:58] Speaker 2: Rowe wasn't happy. She was pissed off with that sentence.
[25:01] Speaker 2: She was actually going to appeal the sentence. But how
[25:05] Speaker 2: they got the extra time out of me is once
[25:07] Speaker 2: I finished the prison sentence, they sent me to immigration
[25:09] Speaker 2: down in Tacoma, Washington.
[25:11] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[25:11] Speaker 2: And they just sat me there for months. They said
[25:15] Speaker 2: they couldn't find my passport. And I didn't want to
[25:17] Speaker 2: call the Australian authorities and get everyone involved.
[25:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[25:20] Speaker 2: I just thought I'd sit and I was getting really
[25:22] Speaker 2: good at.
[25:22] Speaker 1: Sitting and waiting. With that, did you reach out and
[25:24] Speaker 1: tell your family, tell your friends? No.
[25:26] Speaker 2: Well, the other half of this story, my brother called
[25:31] Speaker 2: me once when I was in Colorado and I couldn't
[25:36] Speaker 2: believe he got a hold of me. I got a
[25:38] Speaker 2: thing over the PA saying, come to the warden's office
[25:42] Speaker 2: and it was Dave on the phone and I was–
[25:44] Speaker 2: He goes, holy shit, big fellow, you okay? And I said, yeah,
[25:47] Speaker 2: I'm all right. And he goes, look, don't let anyone
[25:49] Speaker 2: mess with you and I'll be there when you get out. Right.
[25:53] Speaker 2: And I went, yep. I said, how's mum? And he said, yeah,
[25:57] Speaker 2: she's good, man. She's really good. I said, okay, just
[26:01] Speaker 2: tell her I love her.
[26:02] Speaker 1: Okay.
[26:02] Speaker 2: And that would have been about three weeks after I got,
[26:04] Speaker 2: must be about two weeks after I got arrested. So
[26:08] Speaker 2: what he didn't tell me is mum had been dead.
[26:11] Speaker 1: Two weeks.
[26:12] Speaker 2: She was already buried.
[26:13] Speaker 1: He's protecting her. Yeah.
[26:20] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, after that, I got out.
[26:32] Speaker 1: Sorry about your mum and, yeah, it's hard.
[26:36] Speaker 2: After I got out, Dad picked me up from the
[26:38] Speaker 2: airport and took me back to house and said, David
[26:43] Speaker 2: killed himself.
[26:44] Speaker 1: Your brother. And so that was the last conversation. Sorry
[26:51] Speaker 1: to hear that, Tim. Just take a moment. Yeah, you
[26:58] Speaker 1: talk about, I have a lot of people sit here,
[27:00] Speaker 1: we talk about crime, punishment and those sort of things.
[27:04] Speaker 1: But one of the things that I think people don't
[27:07] Speaker 1: fully appreciate when you're inside, and we're not arguing the
[27:11] Speaker 1: merits you deserve to be in or not, is that
[27:14] Speaker 1: you're taken away from society and these are the things
[27:17] Speaker 1: that can happen when you are inside.
[27:19] Speaker 2: Totally. Everyone does time. Everyone's doing the time. My brother
[27:25] Speaker 2: asked to come over and see me in November.
[27:27] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[27:28] Speaker 2: And I said no because I didn't want him spending
[27:30] Speaker 2: all that money coming over.
[27:32] Speaker 1: Coming over.
[27:32] Speaker 2: And you couldn't, you could see me for an hour
[27:34] Speaker 2: a week. Yeah, yeah. And I just wanted, he sent
[27:36] Speaker 2: a message through my lawyer and I didn't realise he
[27:39] Speaker 2: needed to see me more than I needed to see him.
[27:41] Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
[27:41] Speaker 2: But, yeah, you never know what your sentence is going
[27:45] Speaker 2: to be. I got a light sentence and I almost
[27:48] Speaker 2: laugh at that. You would laugh at that sentence of
[27:50] Speaker 2: what I made and what I got away with.
[27:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[27:53] Speaker 2: Yeah. But my sentence started the day I got out.
[27:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, it continues, doesn't it? Yeah. It continues.
[27:59] Speaker 1: When you're in there, were you confronted with violence or
[28:02] Speaker 1: see violence, witness violence?
[28:04] Speaker 2: Look, everyone picks their journey. I got really good at
[28:09] Speaker 2: negotiating to you, like negotiating. Danny Hoffman was head of
[28:13] Speaker 2: the Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi lowriders.
[28:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[28:17] Speaker 2: He went to He wanted to kill this guy for cigarettes.
[28:19] Speaker 2: And I didn't understand. I'm not a criminal. I didn't
[28:22] Speaker 2: understand why you want, like, you'll get a life sentence.
[28:27] Speaker 2: And I said, look, if I can go get cigarettes
[28:30] Speaker 2: from the Russians, like, I didn't want Danny getting in anymore.
[28:34] Speaker 2: I couldn't figure it out because one day I was
[28:38] Speaker 2: walking with him around the pod, around the unit. I said,
[28:42] Speaker 2: what are you going to do when you get out?
[28:43] Speaker 2: And he said, I'm going to get a gun and
[28:45] Speaker 2: I'm going to rob a drug dealer. And I said,
[28:48] Speaker 2: don't you want to get an apartment and get a job?
[28:51] Speaker 2: And he just killed himself laughing and started punching me
[28:54] Speaker 2: in the guts and said, you don't get it. This
[28:56] Speaker 2: is us. This is me. You're here for a visit.
[29:00] Speaker 2: This is what we live. And all those guys protected me.
[29:05] Speaker 2: They did want to hire me. I got a lot
[29:08] Speaker 2: of job offers to do the southern border. When they
[29:11] Speaker 2: find out you're a helicopter pilot and a smuggler, you're
[29:14] Speaker 2: at the top of the food chain.
[29:16] Speaker 1: Right. You're a bit of a character. Yeah. A bit
[29:17] Speaker 1: of a novelty in there. Yeah.
[29:19] Speaker 2: You're not running across in the back of a pickup doing.
[29:22] Speaker 1: A death run. And I dare say for the people
[29:24] Speaker 1: that are in there indoctrinated in that lifestyle, you'd be
[29:26] Speaker 1: a bit of breath of fresh air. Yeah. Come in there.
[29:29] Speaker 1: So a little bit of entertainment in terms of, or
[29:32] Speaker 1: a different perspective on life and seeing what life is
[29:35] Speaker 1: out away from their gangland and hardcore criminals. I couldn't
[29:39] Speaker 1: understand that. and they couldn't. But that would break up
[29:43] Speaker 1: the monotony. Speaking to some, here comes Tim walking through.
[29:46] Speaker 2: What?
[29:46] Speaker 1: Why are you going to kill him for cigarettes? That's stupid.
[29:49] Speaker 1: Let me go get a cigarette from him.
[29:50] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[29:50] Speaker 1: That type of attitude.
[29:51] Speaker 2: And I'll go down and see them. I'll walk in
[29:54] Speaker 2: and talk to anyone.
[29:55] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[29:55] Speaker 2: Hey, look, you guys are going to have major shit
[29:57] Speaker 2: if you don't give me a carton of cigarettes.
[29:59] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:00] Speaker 2: And I don't want to tell you who, but just
[30:01] Speaker 2: give them to me and you'll never, ever hear from
[30:04] Speaker 2: anything again.
[30:04] Speaker 1: Yeah. Simple things like that. Yeah. Well, it's an experience that, yeah,
[30:10] Speaker 1: a lot of people don't get to have. Did it
[30:12] Speaker 1: change you as a person, the experience inside?
[30:15] Speaker 2: Oh, 100%. Yeah. I'm not the same person I was.
[30:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:19] Speaker 2: And, yeah, you keep changing each day. But that was
[30:23] Speaker 2: very significant. I've had two lives. I had one life
[30:28] Speaker 2: up until the point I got out.
[30:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:30] Speaker 2: And then a new life started after that.
[30:33] Speaker 1: You've been inside. So you're carrying the badge of, yeah,
[30:37] Speaker 1: an ex-con. Did that play against you? It didn't. It didn't.
[30:42] Speaker 2: I didn't– I said to Dad, part of it, you know,
[30:47] Speaker 2: I had a couple of mates dying and I said
[30:49] Speaker 2: to Dad, I've got to get back to my life
[30:50] Speaker 2: in Canada. That's what I've got to do.
[30:52] Speaker 1: So you've come back, you've been released.
[30:54] Speaker 2: I've been released.
[30:55] Speaker 1: Immigration, then deported.
[30:56] Speaker 2: Deported back to Australia and Dad told me Dave's dead,
[31:00] Speaker 2: Mum's dead. And then on my phone, a couple of
[31:02] Speaker 2: other mates had died in that year as well. I
[31:05] Speaker 2: just sort of stood at Yipoon and said, I've got
[31:07] Speaker 2: to get back to Canada. And that's what I did.
[31:09] Speaker 2: I turned around about a week later and jumped on
[31:11] Speaker 2: a plane and headed back to Canada. And they didn't
[31:12] Speaker 2: stop me at the border.
[31:13] Speaker 1: That's interesting.
[31:15] Speaker 2: Like nothing was said.
[31:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:16] Speaker 2: All good to go. So I started back in construction
[31:19] Speaker 2: the next day.
[31:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:20] Speaker 2: And I just started rebuilding my life.
[31:22] Speaker 1: Did you stay away from the dark side? 100%.
[31:24] Speaker 2: The dark side?
[31:25] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:26] Speaker 2: I never. I was owed millions of dollars, still loads
[31:29] Speaker 2: that went over that I didn't get paid for.
[31:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:32] Speaker 2: I made a deal with somebody that I wouldn't go
[31:34] Speaker 2: after that money. Yeah. And I would just wipe it.
[31:38] Speaker 2: I never spoke to them again.
[31:40] Speaker 1: When you say made a deal, person caught up in that,
[31:44] Speaker 1: just said, I'm walking away from that.
[31:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, I said, I know what I'm owed.
[31:48] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:49] Speaker 2: You can let them know I'm not coming after them. Yeah.
[31:51] Speaker 2: And we'll leave it at that. All those guys that
[31:54] Speaker 2: put me inside, they were more scared of me than
[31:56] Speaker 2: I was of them. Because I'd changed even in that year.
[31:59] Speaker 2: I wasn't scared. That's the other thing about jail. I
[32:02] Speaker 2: wasn't scared to go back a second time. It would
[32:04] Speaker 2: have been so easy to grab a helicopter and do
[32:09] Speaker 2: it again. Because the scary part about jail was just
[32:13] Speaker 2: the first Six months.
[32:15] Speaker 1: Okay. And you start to get your rhythm in there.
[32:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the process. It's no different than the coal miner.
[32:21] Speaker 2: It's no different than the helicopter pilot. Once you learn
[32:24] Speaker 2: the process of jail and what you can expect, it's
[32:28] Speaker 2: not scary anymore. That's why it's easy to go back
[32:31] Speaker 2: a second time.
[32:33] Speaker 1: So what stopped you? Is this, you've just, no, this
[32:36] Speaker 1: is not for me. I would imagine, and yeah, we
[32:38] Speaker 1: only touched on it, but the weight that carries with
[32:41] Speaker 1: your mum passing away, your brother. Yeah. friends and all that,
[32:44] Speaker 1: but what was the thing that.
[32:46] Speaker 2: I was never a criminal. I wasn't raised in central
[32:49] Speaker 2: Queensland as a criminal. My family were coal miners.
[32:53] Speaker 1: That's not what you and Tezza thought after you did
[32:55] Speaker 1: your first run.
[32:56] Speaker 2: Oh, totally. We were dickheads.
[32:57] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[32:58] Speaker 2: You know, we were just a couple of dickheads that
[33:00] Speaker 2: really should have been mustering cattle up on a property
[33:02] Speaker 2: in far north Queensland.
[33:04] Speaker 1: Did you start to tool up and carry weapons and
[33:07] Speaker 1: was that part of the image when you were running
[33:10] Speaker 1: the drugs?
[33:11] Speaker 2: No, they tried to give me a gun once.
[33:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:13] Speaker 2: They tried to give me a gun and said, I said,
[33:15] Speaker 2: what's the gun for? And they said, well, somebody wants
[33:18] Speaker 2: to take the stuff. And I said, I'm just going
[33:20] Speaker 2: to let you know right now. If somebody comes along
[33:22] Speaker 2: and puts a gun at me and they want to
[33:24] Speaker 2: take the stuff, I'm going to give them a hand
[33:25] Speaker 2: to load it and they can take the helicopter as well.
[33:28] Speaker 2: So understand something, I'm not a bodyguard for your shit.
[33:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Yeah.
[33:33] Speaker 2: I wasn't into the lifestyle. It was very different. I
[33:35] Speaker 2: wasn't into the lifestyle of it, yeah.
[33:37] Speaker 1: I think that's what– It makes me sit here and
[33:41] Speaker 1: laugh and we're talking heavy stuff, but you seem the
[33:44] Speaker 1: most unlikely person to be caught up in this. It's
[33:47] Speaker 1: almost like a Walter Mitty type situation. Right, yeah. You've
[33:50] Speaker 1: ended up in this world that's, yeah.
[33:53] Speaker 2: And I don't understand it and they don't understand me. Yeah.
[33:56] Speaker 2: But somehow I made it through and walked out the
[33:59] Speaker 2: other side.
[34:00] Speaker 1: And like for young blokes, life advice or young women
[34:05] Speaker 1: as well, like getting dragged into this world. It seems glamorous,
[34:08] Speaker 1: but there's a price to pay.
[34:10] Speaker 2: Oh, massive price. And you don't know what that price is.
[34:12] Speaker 2: You may get a long sentence, which sucks. You may
[34:16] Speaker 2: get a short sentence and you get what I got,
[34:19] Speaker 2: a life outside. And- Yeah, you only get one life.
[34:25] Speaker 1: And you navigated your way through prison, but it doesn't
[34:27] Speaker 1: always end up as- I was lucky. You were lucky.
[34:31] Speaker 2: I was lucky. I was lucky. I was a good talker.
[34:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[34:36] Speaker 2: And I carried through that, but I was lucky.
[34:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[34:41] Speaker 2: It had nothing to do with my connections or whatever.
[34:43] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[34:44] Speaker 2: It had to do with luck.
[34:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[34:45] Speaker 2: And I lucked it out for about 18 months.
[34:48] Speaker 1: Yeah. And I suppose the nature of the crime you
[34:50] Speaker 1: came into would be a bit of a- Yeah, the
[34:53] Speaker 1: helicopter pilot, and you'd be able to tell some funny
[34:55] Speaker 1: stories how you couldn't fly the helicopter.
[34:58] Speaker 2: Oh, everyone loved those stories.
[34:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, you could entertain the groups as little guys. Totally. Okay,
[35:05] Speaker 1: you're back in Canada. You're making a life for yourself. Yeah. Relationship-wise,
[35:09] Speaker 1: you're back in the relationship.
[35:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got a couple of dogs. I've got a girl.
[35:13] Speaker 2: I've got my boat. I had a big boat. I
[35:16] Speaker 2: started a construction company. I started another one with a
[35:18] Speaker 2: mate of mine. Everything was doing really well.
[35:20] Speaker 1: Yep.
[35:21] Speaker 2: Then I got a letter in the mail from the
[35:25] Speaker 2: Canadian authorities saying that it appears that you've done some
[35:28] Speaker 2: time in the United States for international drug smuggling.
[35:31] Speaker 1: How long after this?
[35:32] Speaker 2: Eight years.
[35:33] Speaker 1: Eight years.
[35:34] Speaker 2: Came back to bite me. Jesus. They just hit me
[35:36] Speaker 2: with all these charges, serious criminality, people smuggling.
[35:41] Speaker 1: Oh, that's when you got hit with the people smuggling
[35:43] Speaker 1: as well?
[35:43] Speaker 2: With the people smuggling, yeah. And sure enough, I was
[35:47] Speaker 2: stripped of everything.
[35:48] Speaker 1: Right. All your rights over in Canada.
[35:52] Speaker 2: Yeah. And told to get packing. They were going to
[35:54] Speaker 2: give me 10 days to get out of the country.
[35:55] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[35:56] Speaker 2: But we negotiated with the judge and they gave me
[35:59] Speaker 2: eight weeks. Right.
[36:00] Speaker 1: Pack up 22 years. That's how long you'd been in Canada? Yeah.
[36:06] Speaker 1: So how old are you now? 41.
[36:08] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
[36:09] Speaker 1: Could you take your assets that you built up? Could
[36:12] Speaker 1: you sell them off and transfer? It's just weird.
[36:15] Speaker 2: I just bought a new pickup. Yeah. And everyone knows.
[36:20] Speaker 2: You walk into Ford. I just got the new Ford
[36:23] Speaker 2: F-150 Lariat, $ 80, 000 or whatever. Yeah. So I went back
[36:29] Speaker 2: to Ford and said, I've got a life sentence. Canada's
[36:32] Speaker 2: kicking me out. You need to take your car back.
[36:34] Speaker 2: And they said, no, we're not taking it. You just
[36:37] Speaker 2: bought it. It's got 3,000 Ks on it. I said,
[36:41] Speaker 2: and it's the first time I ever felt like I
[36:44] Speaker 2: was dying because I've got a big boat. It's the
[36:47] Speaker 2: middle of winter. I can't fucking sell the thing. Yeah.
[36:50] Speaker 2: You know, it's a shit time of the year to
[36:52] Speaker 2: try and sell a boat.
[36:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[36:53] Speaker 2: Me and my buddy had just refinanced our construction business.
[36:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[36:58] Speaker 2: So we just bought all these excavators, heavily leveraged. Yeah.
[37:02] Speaker 2: Because we were setting ourselves up for the summer. Couldn't
[37:05] Speaker 2: sell that.
[37:05] Speaker 1: Right.
[37:06] Speaker 2: I literally walked out. I drove that. I tried to
[37:09] Speaker 2: explain to Ford, I'll drop your car off. You guys
[37:12] Speaker 2: are just going to have to figure it out. They
[37:14] Speaker 2: couldn't figure out what I was saying. I said, look
[37:16] Speaker 2: at it like this. I've got terminal cancer. And on
[37:20] Speaker 2: the 14th of February, which is the day I was deported,
[37:23] Speaker 2: I will die. Yeah. Don't give a fuck about your car.
[37:26] Speaker 2: You're going to have to figure something out. And they said, no,
[37:28] Speaker 2: it's your car. I said, rightio, you've been warned. I
[37:32] Speaker 2: drove that thing to the airport on my deportation day
[37:34] Speaker 2: and I left the keys in it. Whatever happened to it,
[37:37] Speaker 2: I do not know.
[37:38] Speaker 1: I wonder. Yeah.
[37:40] Speaker 2: I gave Ford a call and said it's sitting on
[37:42] Speaker 2: the third floor right out in front of arrivals at YVR.
[37:45] Speaker 2: That was 13 years ago. I put the boat over
[37:49] Speaker 2: at a mate's house. I think he used it for
[37:51] Speaker 2: a time or two, blew the engines up. He called
[37:53] Speaker 2: me about two years ago and said, hey, your covers
[37:57] Speaker 2: came off the boat. The whole thing's rotten. I said,
[38:00] Speaker 2: just bury it. So I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[38:03] Speaker 1: So you start back here. Where did you move back
[38:06] Speaker 1: when you came back to Australia?
[38:07] Speaker 2: I went back to Dad's for about Six days and
[38:10] Speaker 2: he said, yeah, we won't really see an eye to
[38:13] Speaker 2: eye at that point. So then I went down to
[38:15] Speaker 2: Sydney and I was staying up on Pitt Street at
[38:19] Speaker 2: the backpackers there in a single room working at a
[38:22] Speaker 2: concrete recycling plant.
[38:23] Speaker 1: Okay.
[38:25] Speaker 2: On an excavator just chipping away concrete, catching the bus
[38:28] Speaker 2: to work. Yeah.
[38:29] Speaker 1: Okay.
[38:29] Speaker 2: And thought, what the fuck has my life just become? Okay.
[38:33] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'd say it's a low point, but yeah,
[38:37] Speaker 1: I can imagine you thinking, Had all this, it's all gone, blown.
[38:41] Speaker 1: And then a little bit of resilience to try and
[38:44] Speaker 1: turn it around and start again.
[38:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, just catching that bus each morning and sitting in
[38:48] Speaker 2: that little flea bid room at the backpackers on Pitt
[38:53] Speaker 2: Street and just trying to figure out where to go
[38:56] Speaker 2: or what to do because it was a mental game
[38:59] Speaker 2: at that point. I had been kicked for a crime again.
[39:04] Speaker 2: So be very careful about that crime. I paid for
[39:07] Speaker 2: it in the US.
[39:07] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[39:08] Speaker 2: My family paid for it while I was in there.
[39:12] Speaker 2: Eight years later, I come back to pay for it again.
[39:15] Speaker 2: I'm sent over to here, and essentially I'll pay for
[39:18] Speaker 2: it again. Did you have a sense of worthlessness at
[39:21] Speaker 2: that point in time? Did you start, is this karma?
[39:25] Speaker 2: Is this because I did the wrong thing? Oh, 100%.
[39:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're hard on yourself? 100%.
[39:30] Speaker 2: Like a piece of shit. I never talked to anyone
[39:31] Speaker 2: for three months. Can you imagine me not talking to
[39:34] Speaker 2: anyone for three months? I just walked to the concrete
[39:37] Speaker 2: recycling plant.
[39:39] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[39:39] Speaker 2: I walked back on a Friday. I'd take myself out
[39:42] Speaker 2: for dinner and I wouldn't talk to anyone. I just,
[39:46] Speaker 2: I didn't know what to say. I had all of
[39:48] Speaker 2: what you've just heard. but I didn't know what to say.
[39:50] Speaker 2: When people are just looking at you, probably thinking, well,
[39:53] Speaker 2: what's his loser? What's happened to you? Yeah, you don't
[39:56] Speaker 2: want to hear my story.
[39:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[39:57] Speaker 2: I don't want to tell it either.
[39:59] Speaker 1: It must have been a hard time for you.
[40:02] Speaker 2: Oh, soul searching. I didn't have my brother with me anymore. Yeah.
[40:06] Speaker 2: No family around me. And, you know, I'm in a
[40:10] Speaker 2: country that, look, Australia's a great country, but it wasn't.
[40:13] Speaker 1: You know, I hadn't been here 20 years.
[40:15] Speaker 2: Yeah. Didn't have a driver's license. Didn't have anything.
[40:19] Speaker 1: You gradually started to build a life for yourself in
[40:22] Speaker 1: the real estate.
[40:23] Speaker 2: Yeah. Sydney, I didn't find I had a connection with Sydney,
[40:27] Speaker 2: so I moved to Melbourne, even though I'd mostly like
[40:30] Speaker 2: to come back to Sydney. And then I just started, yeah,
[40:33] Speaker 2: I did a bit of FIFO work to get some
[40:36] Speaker 2: money up, and then I got into real estate at
[40:38] Speaker 2: the bottom and then worked my way up there for
[40:40] Speaker 2: the next seven years.
[40:41] Speaker 1: So starting to build a life together. You've broken up
[40:43] Speaker 1: in the relationship.
[40:44] Speaker 2: Broken up.
[40:45] Speaker 1: The opportunity for maths.
[40:46] Speaker 2: Maths came up.
[40:47] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:47] Speaker 2: And look, then I started dating somebody, so I cancelled it. But,
[40:51] Speaker 2: you know, for about three years, they called me every
[40:54] Speaker 2: year saying, hey, would you like to give it a
[40:56] Speaker 2: go this year? Yeah. And look, the year they called,
[41:00] Speaker 2: I needed some time off from real estate and I
[41:04] Speaker 2: was single, so why not?
[41:07] Speaker 1: I could think for a fucking thousand reasons. Right. Why not? Like, okay,
[41:12] Speaker 1: I already declared in part one I watch maths, so
[41:15] Speaker 1: I'm not– Or I could just say I researched this
[41:17] Speaker 1: for the podcast. I'd never watched the episode of Maths.
[41:21] Speaker 1: And I think everyone knows about it. You come and
[41:23] Speaker 1: marry at first sight. They get all the people volunteering,
[41:26] Speaker 1: the grooms, the brides, walk up there and you meet
[41:29] Speaker 1: the person for the first time. And for TV world,
[41:32] Speaker 1: you're married at that point in time. I reckon you
[41:36] Speaker 1: could count on one or two hands of people that
[41:39] Speaker 1: walked out with their reputation intact because it looks like
[41:42] Speaker 1: a show it's just designed to... cause controversy.
[41:46] Speaker 2: Look, I came out of it really well. Yeah.
[41:48] Speaker 1: You were matched with Lucinda Light, who's a character in
[41:51] Speaker 1: her own right.
[41:52] Speaker 2: Everyone talks about that opening scene. And as you can
[41:55] Speaker 2: see today and my story, I'm a black and white
[41:58] Speaker 2: kind of guy. I told them exactly who I want.
[42:01] Speaker 1: Yep.
[42:01] Speaker 2: I said, I don't want no hippies.
[42:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[42:04] Speaker 2: I don't want nobody from Byron Bay. I don't want
[42:06] Speaker 2: no tree huggers. I don't want any crystals. If she
[42:09] Speaker 2: asks what fucking sign I am, I'm going to run
[42:11] Speaker 2: for the hills. Then cut to her. She's hugging a tree.
[42:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[42:17] Speaker 2: Got a crystal trying to channel the energy. And every
[42:20] Speaker 2: bloke says the same thing. Oh, fucking let's watch this.
[42:22] Speaker 1: This is going to be a shit show. Because it
[42:25] Speaker 1: was Earth Mother and you and Lucinda. And that's the
[42:29] Speaker 1: type of person she was. I'm not attacking her. You
[42:33] Speaker 1: and her together, I thought this is hilarious.
[42:35] Speaker 2: But, you know, again, the story. Channel 9 didn't know
[42:38] Speaker 2: I had a criminal past. Yeah. Yeah. When I was
[42:41] Speaker 2: filling out that contract, it said, have you ever been
[42:43] Speaker 2: in jail?
[42:43] Speaker 1: Nope.
[42:44] Speaker 2: Have you ever had any dealings with lawyers?
[42:45] Speaker 1: Nope.
[42:46] Speaker 2: Police?
[42:46] Speaker 1: Nope.
[42:47] Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm like, you're paying me $ 150 a day. You
[42:49] Speaker 2: get $ 150 worth of information, which is my name, where
[42:53] Speaker 2: I live, and my birthday. All the other shit, you've
[42:55] Speaker 2: got to find out. So it's a game of discovery
[42:59] Speaker 2: for us all.
[43:00] Speaker 1: You've got cameras on you 24-7 or almost 24-7. They
[43:02] Speaker 1: edit it. So- You can be a good guy for
[43:10] Speaker 1: 24 hours and then be a dickhead for 30 seconds.
[43:13] Speaker 1: And it'll be when you're being a dickhead for the
[43:15] Speaker 1: 30 seconds, it'll be highlighted. Did you feel the pressure
[43:18] Speaker 1: of that or did you see it as a game
[43:20] Speaker 1: or play it as a game?
[43:23] Speaker 2: I'm not an idiot. And exactly what I said in prison,
[43:26] Speaker 2: you got two ears and one mouth and use them
[43:30] Speaker 2: in every part of life. So I knew that Married
[43:34] Speaker 2: at First Sight is a game.
[43:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[43:36] Speaker 2: It's got nothing to do with relationships. It's big brother,
[43:39] Speaker 2: played in couples in a hotel.
[43:40] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[43:41] Speaker 2: When you break the game down, that's what it is. Yeah.
[43:44] Speaker 2: So from the moment I walked on set, from the
[43:48] Speaker 2: moment I walked on set for the Bucks party, I thought, righty,
[43:51] Speaker 2: I looked around and just like in prison, you size
[43:54] Speaker 2: everyone up. And I thought, okay, Australia's going to hate
[43:57] Speaker 2: a couple of these blokes. Yeah. So I'm going to
[44:00] Speaker 2: hate them first. So anyone with a hair bun and
[44:04] Speaker 2: fucking trousers that don't go down the ankles, you're on
[44:07] Speaker 2: my shit list because every Aussie bloke is going to
[44:10] Speaker 2: hate you, so I'm going to hate you. So I'm
[44:13] Speaker 2: not going to be the sacrificial lamb. Yeah. You know,
[44:15] Speaker 2: I'm not going to be the weak one here. Everyone
[44:17] Speaker 2: makes their first bad decisions in the first 48 hours
[44:21] Speaker 2: on that show.
[44:21] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[44:23] Speaker 2: It's a 48-hour game.
[44:24] Speaker 1: It's interesting. Like from a social experiment, the skills that
[44:27] Speaker 1: you learnt in prison- Well, the way you describe that,
[44:32] Speaker 1: because that's exactly how you read the room in a
[44:35] Speaker 1: prison yard and it's high stakes reading the yard. On
[44:41] Speaker 1: that show, you can see some people and some people
[44:44] Speaker 1: I think you're probably all right, but you have just made,
[44:48] Speaker 1: you have destroyed your reputation.
[44:49] Speaker 2: Fundamental errors.
[44:51] Speaker 1: For the people are going to look at you, you're
[44:53] Speaker 1: going to be unemployable, you're unlikable just because they're not
[44:58] Speaker 1: understanding the situation.
[44:59] Speaker 2: Read the room.
[45:01] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[45:01] Speaker 2: It's a game.
[45:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[45:02] Speaker 2: And you've got to– I can– I'm not that great
[45:06] Speaker 2: with the English language, but I said to these other blokes,
[45:08] Speaker 2: you make one mistake with it and I'll pick up
[45:10] Speaker 2: on it.
[45:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[45:11] Speaker 2: And I did. And they weren't bad guys.
[45:14] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[45:15] Speaker 2: You just– unfortunately, I had to play against somebody.
[45:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[45:19] Speaker 2: And you guys were it.
[45:21] Speaker 1: Well, hours of entertaining. Are you the blame for some
[45:25] Speaker 1: of the controversies if you bought all that drinking on the–
[45:29] Speaker 1: Into the room.
[45:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I got busted a few times there.
[45:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[45:33] Speaker 2: It's all trimmed back. And when Endemol Shine found out
[45:36] Speaker 2: and Channel 9 had done Current Affair and Endemol Shine
[45:40] Speaker 2: didn't know, they were making steady calls to me and
[45:42] Speaker 2: the show still had about four days to run before
[45:44] Speaker 2: the end. And I just had about 50 missed calls
[45:47] Speaker 2: from Endemol Shine. And then finally I'd already done the
[45:51] Speaker 2: interview with Seb Costello. Yeah. And then I picked up
[45:54] Speaker 2: and they go, look, is it true? And I said, yeah,
[45:57] Speaker 2: it's true. have you done the interview? I said, yeah,
[45:59] Speaker 2: I've done it. And they go, holy shit. I just
[46:03] Speaker 2: remember the head of Animal Shine going, well, clearly you've
[46:06] Speaker 2: picked some holes in our vetting system. And I said,
[46:08] Speaker 2: don't feel bad about it. I got past the US
[46:11] Speaker 2: Border Patrol 40 times, so I'm pretty sure I can
[46:13] Speaker 2: get on your reality show.
[46:14] Speaker 1: That's a good way of putting their mind to these.
[46:18] Speaker 1: Did you think it would blow up?
[46:19] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I knew it was going to be like
[46:21] Speaker 2: a bomb.
[46:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, because if it was when the show was screening. Yeah.
[46:25] Speaker 1: And the other thing I want to ask you about
[46:28] Speaker 1: the show because, you know, they talk everyone's five minutes
[46:30] Speaker 1: of fame and that show really delivers it for the
[46:33] Speaker 1: people on there.
[46:33] Speaker 2: It's crazy.
[46:35] Speaker 1: Like I would imagine walking down the street you'd be stopped,
[46:38] Speaker 1: photographed and all sorts of things. Was that part of
[46:42] Speaker 1: the thing that came out?
[46:43] Speaker 2: I didn't realise how big that show was.
[46:46] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:46] Speaker 2: I was a little bit naive in that sense from
[46:48] Speaker 2: the first time it airs.
[46:50] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:50] Speaker 2: You walk out the next day and everybody knows who
[46:54] Speaker 2: you are. Yeah, yeah. It's nuts.
[46:56] Speaker 1: How did you handle that?
[46:57] Speaker 2: I loved it.
[46:58] Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, you've been very honest. Yeah.
[47:04] Speaker 2: Yeah. Got a couple of free counter meals, got a
[47:06] Speaker 2: few free beers. Yeah. You got invited to do a
[47:09] Speaker 2: lot of cool stuff. Yeah. You know, I had property
[47:12] Speaker 2: owners saying, come up and fly helicopters. We're going to
[47:14] Speaker 2: do some mustering.
[47:15] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[47:16] Speaker 2: You know, you get asked to do some really cool
[47:19] Speaker 2: things as long as you're not a dick on the show.
[47:21] Speaker 1: Well, that's true, isn't it?
[47:22] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[47:23] Speaker 1: That's true. Well, I'm glad. So the experience, do you
[47:26] Speaker 1: have any regrets from it? None. You're happy that you
[47:29] Speaker 1: went down that path? Yeah, totally. Totally. Well, you do
[47:31] Speaker 1: take some risks. What's your next little project?
[47:34] Speaker 2: Look, I ran for parliament last year.
[47:36] Speaker 1: Did you?
[47:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, I ran for the federal parliament.
[47:38] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[47:38] Speaker 2: That was interesting.
[47:40] Speaker 1: Where was that at?
[47:41] Speaker 2: Well, that was for the seat of Melbourne.
[47:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[47:45] Speaker 2: My little 2% got Adam Bandt kicked out, which is good. Really?
[47:49] Speaker 2: My preference voting, yeah.
[47:50] Speaker 1: Look, I wanted to get- What inspired that?
[47:53] Speaker 2: I want to get back into the criminal game and
[47:55] Speaker 2: what better place to play than at the elite level
[48:00] Speaker 2: of the federal government. You know, if you're going to
[48:02] Speaker 2: start robbing banks, you might as well pony up there.
[48:05] Speaker 1: Get everyone flying helicopters to parliament, save on those travel rules.
[48:09] Speaker 2: Exactly. Look, it was– but everything– I tend to– Did
[48:14] Speaker 2: you go in that for the experience or you– I
[48:18] Speaker 2: generally wanted to change Melbourne or I hated what it
[48:24] Speaker 2: had become. Yeah, everything is about those split-second decisions because
[48:29] Speaker 2: I remember standing with my campaign manager out the front
[48:33] Speaker 2: and he said, look, we need to get some media
[48:36] Speaker 2: and we need some money.
[48:38] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[48:38] Speaker 2: And he said, can you give some of your friends
[48:41] Speaker 2: a call in the media thing? Right then, it's almost
[48:44] Speaker 2: like a bolt of lightning. Right then- I heard some
[48:47] Speaker 2: screams coming from around on Chapel Street, and these two
[48:50] Speaker 2: guys come screaming, buying machetes. And I just, in R.M. Williams'
[48:54] Speaker 2: boots and suit, chased after one and caught the guy
[48:57] Speaker 2: with the machete.
[48:58] Speaker 1: I was looking the other day, just stuff like that. Yeah.
[49:00] Speaker 1: Tell us that story.
[49:02] Speaker 2: I chased this young bloke down. Look, I was going
[49:05] Speaker 2: to give up. I was getting pretty pooped. I remember
[49:07] Speaker 2: the cop came along and grabbed him.
[49:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[49:09] Speaker 2: And, you know, I'd already had the balaclava off him
[49:12] Speaker 2: by then and the cop looked at me and looked
[49:14] Speaker 2: at him and said to the young bloke, you should
[49:15] Speaker 2: be ashamed of yourself letting this bloke catch you. But, yeah,
[49:22] Speaker 2: that was pretty funny. Really weird. I got a phone
[49:26] Speaker 2: call that night saying this guy had watched what I'd
[49:29] Speaker 2: done and was really impressed. Yeah. And, yeah, over the
[49:33] Speaker 2: next 24 hours he donated $ 150, 000 to my campaign.
[49:34] Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a different thing.
[49:41] Speaker 2: You know what? I don't know who he was. Yeah, yeah.
[49:43] Speaker 2: I haven't got a clue. I got a call from
[49:45] Speaker 2: his handler and said he doesn't want to know who
[49:48] Speaker 2: it is. Yeah. There's going to be $ 16, 400 lots dropped
[49:51] Speaker 2: into your account over the next 24 hours. He just
[49:54] Speaker 2: wants to say thanks.
[49:55] Speaker 1: Is that something you'd ever do again, like run for parliament?
[49:59] Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't do it again.
[50:00] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[50:01] Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd rather do drug dealing, to be honest. It's
[50:05] Speaker 2: just such a dirty game.
[50:07] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[50:09] Speaker 2: You want to be honest?
[50:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[50:11] Speaker 2: I got into real estate because I wanted to be
[50:13] Speaker 2: an honest real estate agent. You can't be.
[50:15] Speaker 1: Yeah. You get corrupted by it.
[50:17] Speaker 2: If you try and tell the truth, you'll crash every
[50:20] Speaker 2: deal you try and put together.
[50:21] Speaker 1: I wouldn't buy this house because the property values are dropping.
[50:24] Speaker 1: You're not going to get a sale, are you? Right.
[50:26] Speaker 1: But I see politicians. I see some people that go
[50:29] Speaker 1: in for, I believe, the right reasons. Yeah. And you
[50:33] Speaker 1: see them slowly get corrupted or not be the person
[50:36] Speaker 1: that they Yeah, you hope they'd be. And I think
[50:39] Speaker 1: it's the system. You're doing a lot of public speaking now?
[50:42] Speaker 2: I'm doing a lot of speaking now, yeah, yeah.
[50:44] Speaker 1: And telling your life stories, lessons learned?
[50:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, lessons learned, life story. I mean, you know, I
[50:51] Speaker 2: struggle even today with depression. I've had some pretty bad
[50:55] Speaker 2: belts with it. And you never know what struggle somebody's
[51:00] Speaker 2: got having underneath the hood. And although I look like
[51:04] Speaker 2: a shiny truck up there.
[51:06] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[51:06] Speaker 2: You know, I fight the same battles as everybody else. Yeah.
[51:10] Speaker 2: I just put a boot on each day. And when
[51:12] Speaker 2: you need help, you've got to get help.
[51:15] Speaker 1: That's good advice. I think we're waking up to that. Like,
[51:18] Speaker 1: blokes being blokes, we tend not to, you know, you
[51:20] Speaker 1: said you went through that three months where you didn't
[51:23] Speaker 1: talk to anyone.
[51:24] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[51:24] Speaker 1: And that's the way a lot of blokes reacted. when
[51:30] Speaker 1: things are down, you just be a bit stoic, just
[51:32] Speaker 1: shut up and get on with things.
[51:34] Speaker 2: Look, I stood on the edge of darkness in 2019,
[51:36] Speaker 2: couldn't want to end it. And ironically enough, I had
[51:40] Speaker 2: a reading from my brother. Like, Tezza bought me a
[51:44] Speaker 2: reading when I got out of jail. And I don't
[51:49] Speaker 2: believe in any of that stuff.
[51:50] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[51:50] Speaker 2: Like, clearly, listen to it. But, you know, he said
[51:54] Speaker 2: some things and, yeah, Dave said he'd made a mistake
[51:58] Speaker 2: and he said, if you ever get to that point,
[52:00] Speaker 2: wait 10 seconds. That's what this reader didn't know. And
[52:03] Speaker 2: so that actually ran through my head and said, just
[52:06] Speaker 2: wait 10 seconds.
[52:07] Speaker 1: The few people that have made genuine attempts to kill
[52:11] Speaker 1: themselves that I've heard of or some contact with, every
[52:16] Speaker 1: one of them is the moment you stepped off the
[52:19] Speaker 1: building or the moment you regret it.
[52:23] Speaker 2: That's what Dave said from the grave? And if you
[52:25] Speaker 2: ever listen to that speaker that jumped off the Golden
[52:28] Speaker 2: Gate Bridge, he just talks about him crying on the
[52:31] Speaker 2: bus and just people walking by him. And then he
[52:35] Speaker 2: said when he put his hand on the edge and
[52:37] Speaker 2: he walked off and he said, if the bloke coming
[52:40] Speaker 2: before me said what's wrong, he wouldn't have done it.
[52:43] Speaker 2: And the bloke just walked by him and he jumped off.
[52:46] Speaker 2: But the minute his hand left the steel, he went,
[52:49] Speaker 2: fuck it, I want to do this.
[52:50] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, that's good advice. So from a reader, so
[52:54] Speaker 1: Lucinda did get– Get something across here.
[53:00] Speaker 2: Oh, mate, we're going to have to do a couple
[53:01] Speaker 2: of mass parties next.
[53:02] Speaker 1: Year, right? You could have lived up at Byron Bay. Yeah,
[53:06] Speaker 1: there you go. There you go. Fly the helicopters in.
[53:09] Speaker 1: There's plenty of cannabis up there. You can ship it
[53:13] Speaker 1: around all over the place.
[53:14] Speaker 2: Totally.
[53:15] Speaker 1: Tim, look, I've enjoyed the chat, and thank you for
[53:20] Speaker 1: being so open with it. I really have. You've given
[53:24] Speaker 1: me an insight into a crazy world, and you still
[53:28] Speaker 1: can laugh, but, yeah, I don't know what you're going
[53:30] Speaker 1: to do in the future, but I hope it's good
[53:32] Speaker 1: for you.
[53:33] Speaker 2: To be honest, I haven't got a frigging clue.
[53:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[53:36] Speaker 2: But that's part of it.
[53:37] Speaker 1: Well, keep doing what you're doing because you just seem
[53:39] Speaker 1: to just, you know, Walter Mitty, here we come. Just
[53:43] Speaker 1: be careful flying those helicopters. Kassa, give me a license. Well,
[53:49] Speaker 1: I didn't want to ask that because I don't want
[53:50] Speaker 1: to jinx you, but are you trying to get the license? Yeah.
[53:54] Speaker 2: Okay.
[53:55] Speaker 1: Well, hopefully that'll work out. Anyone that's mad enough to
[53:58] Speaker 1: fly like you've done, I'd be happy to get in
[54:00] Speaker 1: the cockpit with you.
[54:01] Speaker 2: There you go.
[54:01] Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. Thanks, Tim.
[54:03] Speaker 2: Cheers, mate.
[54:04] Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Cheers. Cheers.

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