editorial comment Ah! At least in the US, passengers are "protected" by the TSA.....

Qantas baggage handlers were paid $300,000 to smuggle a briefcase of cocaine through Sydney airport, a court was told today.

The allegation was set out in court documents tendered during a bail hearing for Ian Robert Chalmers, 40, charged over an alleged conspiracy to import $15 million of cocaine into Australia.

A police statement of facts tendered to the court detailed the crime ring's operations as told to Operation Mocha officers by an informant.

In it, Qantas baggage handlers were identified as being part of the long-running operation, smuggling a briefcase containing 9.9 kilograms of cocaine through the airport on October 8 last year.

The documents also said the baggage handlers were paid a total of $300,000 for their part.

Chalmers, a former Macquarie Bank director, was refused bail by Sydney's Central Local Court.

Chalmers is one of 12 men charged over the alleged drug import racket. Another of those charged was Shane Desmond Hatfield, 40, of Bondi.

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AdvertisementLeslie Robert Mara, 52, a Balmain rugby league player during the 1970s, and Michael Nicholas Hurley, 58, are wanted by police over the matter.

The papers tendered in court stated: "Hurley and Mara had responsibility for securing arrangements with Qantas baggage handlers at the international airport so that a briefcase containing cocaine could be imported into Australia on a commercial airline flight from South America and removed before it was subject to Customs examination."

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