Drug squad cop 'supplied underworld'
By Stuart Walsh
09aug05
A FORMER senior drugs squad officer made thousands of dollars by supplying drugs to the Bandidos motorcycle gang and members of Melbourne's infamous Moran family, a court heard today.

Wayne Geoffrey Strawhorn, 49, became a criminal who "misused and manipulated the system for his own personal gain", Crown prosecutor Jeremy Rapke, QC, said in his opening address to the Victorian Supreme Court.

Mr Strawhorn has pleaded not guilty to five counts of trafficking pseudoephedrine, including one of a commercial amount, between October 1999 and May 2000.

He also denies a sixth charge of making a threat to kill an ethical standards department detective.

At the time of the alleged offences, Mr Strawhorn was a detective senior sergeant and second in command of one of the drugs squad's three units.

Mr Rapke said Mr Strawhorn's role was to direct authorised drugs deals, or controlled deliveries, aimed at identifying secret laboratories.

But Mr Strawhorn made thousands of dollars from controlled deliveries he was not authorised to carry out, to the Bandidos motorcycle gang and the Moran family and their associates, he said.

The illicit deals, with Mr Strawhorn using a police informer to conduct the transactions, allegedly included the supply of 2kg of pseudoephedrine to Mark Moran, who was shot and killed in 2000.

Police could buy pseudoephedrine for $170 a kilogram as part of their supposed investigation, and sell it on the black market for $10,000, Mr Rapke said.

"There was a potential for corruption," he told the jury.

After Mr Strawhorn learned he was under investigation by the ethical standards department, he allegedly threatened to kill Inspector Peter De Santo, the man he blamed for ruining his life and career, Mr Rapke said.

Mr Strawhorn was secretly taped making the threat, on March 15, 2003, two days before his arrest, he said.

Mr Strawhorn is alleged to have said: I will not rest until he is dead.

When asked if he intended to kill Insp De Santo himself, Mr Strawhorn allegedly said: Yeah, it's the only way to get satisfaction.

"This is a trial which is about one man's fall from grace, a fall from the pinnacle of his career to a criminal who misused and manipulated the system for his own personal gain," Mr Rapke told the jury.

"It is about the abuse of power and trust by a police officer."

The trial before Justice John Coldrey continues.