David Ollerenshaw: Perth man pleads guilty to his part in postal cocaine scheme

A Perth man who cooked up a multi-million dollar drug smuggling scheme — using sachets of soup and curry powder to cover up his cocaine shipments — has pleaded guilty to a string of serious charges. David Ollerenshaw was arrested last year, days after authorities led by the Australian Federal Police examined an international mail consignment and discovered more than 560g of cocaine hidden in sachets which said they were soup. Days after that, Border Control officers in Sydney got in the way of a second package — addressed to the same address in Scarborough — and found another 400g of cocaine, this time concealed in curry sauce sachets. A subsequent raid on that coastline property, and another in Perth, turned up $116,480 cash, a mobile phone, 28 grams of cocaine, five grams of methamphetamine, eight grams of MDMA and 15 grams of cannabis. And led to the arrest of Ollerenshaw. Another raid on a Morley address the next day turned up another $234,850 in cash. And on April 5, ABF officers in Perth intercepted a third consignment — labelled as curry sauce but in reality containing more than 550 grams of cocaine. The 34 year-old was charged with various drugs and proceeds of crime allegations, and was bailed. Still out on that bail, he appeared in Perth Magistrates Court this week, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug trafficking, drug possession and dealing with proceeds of crime. Part of that bail was not to contact another woman, who is also facing serious drugs charges. And he will have to return to Perth’s District Court in the coming months, where a date will be set for his sentencing. At the time of Ollerenshaw’s arrest, AFP Inspector Matt Taylor said the agency was committed to stopping drugs coming into Australia — however they were coming in. “While many air mail or air cargo imports may seem like relatively small amounts of illicit substances, combined they can equate to millions of individual street deals and can cause significant harm,” Insp Taylor said. “Across Australia, there were 1800 cocaine-related hospitalisations in 2020-21 — almost five people each day on average. “There were 12,400 hospitalisations over the same period related to methamphetamine use — 33 people each day on average. “Illicit drugs can cause significant physiological, psychological, financial and social harms, not only to users but to those around them — those drug-related hospitalisations are an impost on the health system that negatively impacts the entire community. “The AFP will continue to work with partners to protect the community by disrupting attempts to import drugs into Australia.” ABF Supt Aviation Goods James Payne said his officers would also keep playing a crucial role in drugs coming through the international mail system. “Criminals will try to hide illicit substances in a variety of creative ways, however our officers have many detection methods at their disposal, with officer intuition and use of innovative technologies often the driving forces behind these kind of discoveries,” Supt Payne said.