Olympian jailed for 25 years over failed £105m cocaine smuggling plot

Former Olympic medallist Nathan Baggaley has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars following his role in a failed $200million (£105million) cocaine plot.

Canoeist Baggaley, 45, won two silver medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics along with three further world championship golds in the K1-500m as he became one of the finest paddlers of his generation.

Baggaley and his younger brother Dru, 39, were found guilty in April of trying to smuggle up to £105million worth of cocaine into Australia in 2018.

Brisbane Supreme Court Justice Ann Lyons sentenced the Olympian on Tuesday, while Dru Baggaley was jailed for 28 years.

Dru Baggaley and another man, Anthony Draper, were arrested three years ago after being pursued at sea by an Australian navy vessel.

They had ventured 360km from the coast where they met a foreign cargo ship throwing packages of cocaine onto their inflatable boat.

The men tried to dispose of the cocaine bundles by lobbing them into the sea when pursued but were arrested before they reached shore.

It is estimated that there were between $130million and $200million worth of drugs recovered immediately and washed ashore in the months following their arrests.

Nathan Baggaley tried to avoid a lengthy sentence by claiming his role was minimal but the judge found he had been ‘actively involved in the attempted importation of cocaine’ and was aware of the substantial amount of drugs involved.

The disgraced athlete had also been responsible for buying the RHIB boat, a trailer and a satellite phone among other items in his attempt to become a multi-millionaire from the plot.

Dru Baggaley, meanwhile, was sentenced for being the ‘principal organiser of the attempted importation of the cocaine’ along with his role in recruiting Nathan.

Nathan Baggaley’s fall from grace started long before 2018, having been banned from his sport for taking steroids in 2005.

The duo were then jailed in 2009 after manufacturing and selling ecstasy tablets before again being caught producing party pills and methamphetamine in 2015.

Professional fisherman Draper was also sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug importation charges in earlier proceedings.

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