 Russell
Bassett
A former drug squad Detective
Sergeant, in 1989 Bassett was accused in court of stealing $2000 from a suspect
arrested for giving prostitutes heroin in exchange for sex.
When Ion Ban was arrested by
Bassett on January 28, 1988, the senior detective confiscated a vinyl bag
containing a large sum of money.
The suspect claimed that it had
contained $7000 but only $5000 was given as evidence.
Bassett told the court that
Ban had admitted giving prostitutes heroin but this admission was strongly
denied by the defence.
In March 1988, when a Senior
Detective, Bassett was shot at from just 6m during a $250,000 robbery on an ANZ
bank in Footscray.
"I was frightened. I thought
I would be shot. I thought my partner would be shot"' he said.
"I
can't describe in words how frightened I was. I saw the gun and blue smoke
coming from all over it".
In 1998 Bassett was seconded
from the Victoria Police drug squad to the National Crime Authority.
Bassett was due to work for the NCA for two
years but left in December 1998, after nine months.
Bassett
resigned from the police force in 1999
after 20
years of service.
He
became a private
investigator
Police later alleged that between
January 15 and 31, 2001, Bassett falsely told the owner of Gotham City brothel in
South Melbourne, who was applying to vary a brothel licence, that a serving
police officer on the board of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal
would preside over his application.
Bassett, accused of trying to solicit about $40,000 in return for help to get
the Gotham City brothel an operating licence, was charged in 2002.
On August 1, 2001, Bassett was
allegedly kidnapped in a pseudoephedrine heist.
He was working as a courier and security
agent.
Bassett is believed to have
picked up the shipment at Melbourne Airport.
The drugs were bound for Sigma
Pharmaceuticals in Croydon in Melbourne's east.
In Australia's biggest drug
robbery to date, about 175kg of pure pseudoephedrine - commonly used in the
production of amphetamines- was stolen in a daylight raid.
The drugs had an estimated street
value of $10m.
Mr
Bassett told investigators he was ambushed
and his car, a Magna, forced off the road in Croydon shortly after noon.
Bassett
told police his car was intercepted at a Warrandyte roundabout by three armed
men who took him at gunpoint to Colman Park Reserve, where two more men pulled
up in a white van and stole the drugs.
While
the gunmen seized the drug, Bassett claimed he was kept in the the van.
"Don't be a hero and you won't get hurt," they said.
Bassett
later told a court that he huddled in the back of the crowded van next to seven
drums of pseudoephedrine, he closed his eyes and began to wish he wasn't there.
Then,
he says, he blacked out.
Basset was later bound to
a tree with plastic cables after
he was frog marched
into the bush, with a gun at his head, near The Basin.
The
thieves then set fire to his car and made off with the drugs.
The
seven drums of pseudoephedrine were not
found.
Bassett was severely shaken and
taken to hospital.
On June 27, 2002
the Herald Sun reported that Bassett faced criminal charges over claims he sought a bribe from
the Melbourne brothel.
Bassett faced a charge of inciting a bribe and of
attempting to obtain property by deception.
On July 2, 2002, Bassett was ordered
to stand trial on charges of trying to obtain $15,000 dishonestly to help the brothel owner vary his business licence.
Bassett pleaded guilty to charges of
attempting to obtain property by deception and using a false document in January
2001 to prejudice others.
A charge of inciting a bribe was dropped.
Bassett pleaded guilty to trying to obtain
$15,000 from the brothel owner dishonestly, guaranteeing the police officer would grant
his licence, after it was refused by the Business Licensing Authority.
The former police officer was not on the VCAT
board at the time.
VCAT hears complaints lodged by businesses whose
licensing applications are rejected by the Business Licensing Authority.
A police officer advises VCAT on licensing.
It was further alleged that on January 24, 2001
Mr Bassett used a false document to assert that it gave him the power to obtain
other documents from the BLA.
During subpoena argument at the Melbourne
Magistrates Court, Geoff Chettle, for Mr Bassett, said his client was trying to
streamline the licensing process so that instead of two years, applications were
resolved within two months.
Magistrate Jane Patrick ordered Mr Bassett, who
remained on bail on his own undertaking, to stand trial at the County Court.
On July
22, 2002, Geoff Wilkinson reported in the Herald Sun that concern that the
fall-out from police corruption allegations could spread to National Crime
Authority had been allayed.
National
director Nigel Hadgkiss said disgraced former Victoria Police detective Russell
Bassett was not involved in any matters sill before the courts while working for
the NCA.
Mr Hadgkiss said he was
unaware of any pending NCA prosecutions that could be affected by a taskforce
investigation of corruption allegations against former members of the drug
squad.
On August 23, 2002,
Bassett was arrested again.
On this occasion, it was
alleged that he was involved in the August 2001, drugs heist in which the van he
was driving was ambushed.
On August 26, 2002, claims
of payback kidnappings, kneecappings and bolt-cutter torture were aired in court.
Bassett appeared in
Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with
incitement to kidnap and the unlawful disclosure of police information.
Police alleged in court Mr Bassett was involved in a plan to kidnap the
father of one of the recipients of the chemicals stolen in the ambush incident a
year before.
Det-Sgt David Gillard told the court Mr Bassett told an undercover officer he
was owed $250,000 by two men he believed to be the final recipients of the
pseudoephedrine.
Det-Sgt Gillard said Mr Bassett tried to contract the undercover officer to
kidnap the father of one of the men.
Mr Bassett allegedly said he would demand a $1 million ransom because people
needed to be punished.
He allegedly said if the cash was not received in 18 hours he would use a
pair of bolt cutters, and "someone would be getting a finger in the
mail".
Det-Sgt Gillard said police surveillance revealed Mr Bassett was
simultaneously arranging for a separate person to try to recover the debt, and
had discussed kneecapping the men, burning down their house or shooting them.
Det-Sgt Gillard said Mr Bassett told the undercover officer he knew who had
orchestrated the pseudoephedrine hijack.
Mr Bassett's wife, a serving police officer, broke down as she gave evidence
in support of her husband's application for bail.
Lawyer Geoff Chettle, for Mr Bassett, said his client was a father of four
with no prior convictions.
Magistrate Lisa Hannan released Mr Bassett of Lower Plenty on bail with a
$50,000 surety and ordered him to appear in the same court in October.
On October 15,
2002
Bassett
admitted dishonestly attempting to obtain $15,000 from a brothel owner to get
the licence approved.
His lawyer, Geoff Chettle, told the Victorian
County Court Bassett was offering a genuine service but lied to snag a client in
January 2001.
Bassett and retired police
inspector David Reid had planned to set up a business to help people with
brothel applications.
Bassett's judgement was severely impaired after a
series of traumatic events Mr Chettle said.
Being stalked by a female colleague at the
National Crime Authority in 1998 left Bassett and his wife suffering stress and
depression, he said.
On November 6, 2002,
Bassett was
sentenced to three months jail by
Judge Irene Lawson.
His
sentence was wholly suspended.
On July 4, 2003 Bassett was charged over the missing drugs with a street value up
to $27 million.
Bassett claimed he was the victim when 175kg
of pseudoephedrine he was transporting was stolen in Australia's biggest drug
hold-up in August 2001.
But he faced court charged with stealing
and trafficking the chemicals.
"There's no way known I'm going to run away
from these charges when I'm 100 per cent innocent," Bassett told
Melbourne Magistrates' Court.
"I just want an opportunity to prove there
has been a travesty of justice."
The former policeman had allegedly boasted to a friend of a job worth $17
million that would be "the biggest in Australia".
The court heard he was hired to drive seven 25kg
drums of pseudoephedrine, lawfully used in cold and flu tablets, from the
airport to a chemical company.
Det-Sgt David Gillard told the court Mr Bassett
said he was put into the rear of a van and then dumped in bushland, tied to a
tree with cables.
The car he was driving, which belonged to a
friend, was set alight.
The armed robbers allegedly took off with the
drums, which were worth between $17 million and $27 million on the
black market, the court heard.
A taskforce set up to investigate the alleged
robbery could not trace the car that Mr Bassett claimed was driven by the
bandits.
Det-Sgt Gillard said Mr Bassett told a serving
officer before the theft that the chemicals could be stolen by impersonating the
lawful courier or by intercepting them en route.
The officer reported the conversation to ethical
standards division investigators.
Mr Bassett had earlier told the friend whose car
was torched in the robbery that "something big" was going to go down
that would be on the news, the court heard.
Police alleged Mr Bassett told the friend of a job
involving six people that was worth $17 million, of which he would get
about a third.
The court heard Mr Bassett later told an
undercover police officer he was owed money by two men, referred to as "the
Greek" and "the Italian", for the stolen drugs.
Because the men refused to pay him he hatched a
plot to kidnap the Greek's father for a $1 million ransom, the court heard.
The undercover officer said
Bassett later told him: "I wasn't involved in the robbery and it wasn't a
set-up, do you know where I'm coming from?"
Mr Bassett was charged over the alleged
kidnapping plot but was yet to face a preliminary hearing.
Mr Bassett told the court he was trying to help
police solve the armed robbery and had always maintained his version of the
heist.
Representing himself in court, he suggested the
serving policeman who had reported him to ESD was a key suspect in an unsolved
break-in at the drug squad.
Mr Bassett asked why photofits he had compiled of
the alleged drug thieves had never been publicly released.
Det-Sgt Gillard said it was decided there was no
value in releasing them.
Bassett told the court that there
was no risk of him fleeing the state because he was "100 per cent
innocent". "I just want an opportunity so much to prove that there has
been a travesty of justice," he said from the dock.
Bassett, who suffers from
post-traumatic stress disorder, said that if other prisoners became aware of his
former job, he would have to be isolated in a padded cell.
But magistrate Lisa Hannan
refused Bassett bail, saying that the charges were very serious and the
prosecution case appeared to be strong.
She told Bassett that the
circumstances he faced in jail were "simply the reality of being charged
with a history of that type".
Magistrate Lisa Hannan remanded Mr Bassett in
custody and ordered him to return to court the following September.
When Bassett's trial finally began in December
2005 prosecutors argued his story about his 2001 kidnapping did not add up.
They alleged his story was part of an elaborate
plot used to cover up his role in the heist.
Prosecutor Peter McDermott said at the time it
was Ausralia's largest theft of pseudoephedrine and that Bassett's kidnapping
was staged.
"Far from being the victim of an armed
robbery, (Bassett) was in fact complicit in the theft," he said.
During cross-examination, Mr McDermott challenged
Bassett's version, arguing that if he had been dragged to the back of the
gunmen's van as they seized the drug he would have been covered in the chemical.
Defence barrister Paul Marin said because Bassett
suffered mental blackouts that prevented him recalling some details of the
robbery it did not mean he was lying.
Mr Marin explained that Bassett left the police
force with post-traumatic stress disorder after he was stalked and it was then
that the blackouts began.
"What happens when you have these blackouts,
Mr Bassett?" he asked.
"Sometimes I can recall the events, other
times I can't … it's similar to if you have a lot of alcohol and you can't
remember a lot of what happened but you know you made it home safe."
Mr McDermott said Bassett had also sought the
help of a man — who was an undercover police officer — to kidnap someone
because he had not been paid his share of the proceeds.
On December 20, 2005, after a three-month
trial in the Victorian County Court, a 14-member jury unanimously found Bassett
not guilty of theft and of trafficking a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine.
Judge Carolyn Douglas discharged the jury without
verdict on a third charge that alleged Bassett, 45, plotted to kidnap a man to
recover his share of the profits from the heist.
The jury had earlier indicated they were
deadlocked on that third count.
Prosecutor Peter McDermott announced after the
verdict that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coghlan QC, intended to
re-try Bassett on the count.
Judge Douglas extended Bassett's bail and
adjourned the remaining charge. In
April 2006, Age reporter, Padraic Murphy wrote
that fugitive drug dealer and millionaire businessman, Tony
Mokbel
was believed to have organised the theft
of 175kg of pseudoephedrine from a colourful former police officer.
The
policeman was
taking the amphetamine-precursor chemicals to a drug company in Melbourne's
eastern suburbs.
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