Former bank exec jailed for drug smuggling
By Belinda Tasker
May 04, 2007 06:34pm
A FORMER Macquarie Bank corporate high-flyer has been jailed for five-and-a-half years for his role in a conspiracy to import up to $15 million worth of cocaine into Australia.
Ian Robert Chalmers, 42, of Paddington, was found guilty by a jury last August over his role in a drug smuggling ring, which used Sydney Airport baggage handlers to help bring cocaine into Australia.
At his trial last year, the jury heard how the former stockbroker paid for an $8000 return plane ticket for a drugs mule to go to the Argentinean capital Buenos Aires to pick up 30kg of cocaine.
Chalmers, a long-time director of Macquarie Bank, claimed he only bought the ticket to help repay a $10,000 debt to one of the members of the drugs ring and did not know about the cocaine smuggling plan.
While the deal never went ahead after police exposed the plan, the jury found Chalmers guilty of one charge of conspiring to import a commercial quantity of cocaine.
Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and dark coloured tie, Chalmers sat with his head bowed in the Downing Centre District Court today as Judge Peter Berman handed down his sentence.
He ordered Chalmers, who has been in protective custody since last year, to spend five-and-a-half years behind bars, with a three-and-a-half year non-parole period.
Judge Berman said while Chalmers had a limited role in the drugs ring, he had refused to accept any responsibility for his role in the attempt to smuggle the cocaine into Australia.
He added that despite Chalmers' denials, "he well knew that a significant, substantial quantity of drugs was to be brought into the country".
"There's no evidence that the offender was going to get any benefit, but there was no evidence by the same token ... that the offender had no expectation of receiving a benefit once the scheme achieved its objectives," the judge said.
"The offender was a drug user at the time he committed these offences.
"It would not have been at all surprising if the offender did have an expectation of receiving money or drugs once the large quantity of cocaine was imported."
The court heard that Chalmers, who suffers from depression and bi-polar disorder, began dabbling in drugs in London after splitting from his wife in 2002.
Chalmers' barrister John Spencer told the court his client's world had fallen apart since his arrest in May 2005.
"It's an absolute tragedy that here is a man who rose to the top of his profession ... only to come crashing down to where he is now without a life, not being able to see his children, incapable of holding down a job anything like he had before," Mr Spencer said.
"No one could deny his whole world has crashed in the most spectacular and remarkable way, brought about by himself, but nonetheless that's the result."
