BEN Cousins' closest connections are under scrutiny after his arrest for possession of illicit drugs.
Perth police have been told of persistent rumours linking Cousins' inner-circle to an outlaw motorbike gang.
Football sources allege police have been watching Cousins, a relative of his partner Maylea Tinecheff and former Eagles teammates.
It follows allegations the Cousins group was charging partygoers cash to attend parties featuring heavy drug use.
Cousins was allegedly carrying a large amount of cash - and 4g of "ice" (methylamphetamine) - when police arrested him in Esperance on Tuesday night.
A witness at the airport said Cousins looked like "a homeless man" and "smelt terrible" as he waited to fly back to Perth after his arrest in Esperance, where he was booked in at the Teen Challenge rehab centre. Last night footage emerged of Cousins clashing with a Channel 7 reporter after arriving in Perth on Wednesday.
"You sat on the f---ing plane with us. I said I didn't want to speak ... and you keep f---ing going," the disgraced Brownlow medallist screamed.
Perth police have been told of alleged links between the Cousins group and the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle gang.
"The Coffin Cheaters control drugs in this town," a former Perth detective said last night. "They are connected with John Kizon, and he was always connected with Eagles players."
Melbourne-born Kizon, a convicted heroin trafficker, has long been one of Perth's most colourful identities.
Cousins was last night believed to be bunkered down in his home on Perth's northern beaches. His father Bryan had nothing to say.
Police were refusing to comment on his arrest but former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett said a jail sentence might help Cousins break his drug addiction.
The maximum penalty in WA for possessing more than 4g of methylamphetamine with intent to sell or supply is 25 years' jail and/or a $100,000 fine. Cousins will reappear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Monday.
The police swoop on Cousins followed a raid last month on the Perth home of former teammate Adam Hunter in which they found a cannabis pipe and 75 pills taken for further testing.
Hunter, who starred in the 2006 premiership side, denied knowledge of the pills. No charges have been laid over the raid.
Eagles midfielder Daniel Kerr hit the headlines after a bizarre late-night attack on a Perth taxi driver outside a hospital where he had taken a friend from a nightspot after a sudden "illness".
Club legend Chris Mainwaring died from a cocaine overdose in 2007 after Cousins visited him.
