Corby's dad a drug dealer - cousin
MICHAEL Corby, the late father of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, was involved in the drug trade for at least three decades, it has been alleged by a family member.
Cousin Allan Trembath alleges that Corby was well known in Mackay as the local marijuana dealer, and moved large amounts of cannabis around Queensland.
"I was in the Kooyong Hotel having a few beers and Michael walked in and he approached me and basically straight out he said, 'Do you want to earn 80grand?"' Mr Trembath told the ABC's Lateline.
He said Corby then offered him the money to sail a boat from Mackay to Cedar Bay to pick up a load of marijuana and deliver it back to Mackay.
"I thought, $80 grand, I could do with that. But if I get caught, 10 years in jail - at eight grand ayear when you've got three little kids - didn't sum up, so I refused."
Mr Trembath's father is Michael Corby's uncle. Their parents were siblings.
Corby, who died of cancer early this year, denied knowing anything about the drugs found in his daughter's boogie board bag at Denpasar airport in 2004.
Suspicion fell on him, however, when it was revealed that his one-time neighbour and friend, Tony Lewis, was convicted in 2004 of selling drugs that were packed in vacuum-sealed plastic bags of the type found in Schapelle's boogie board bag.
In May 2005, The Weekend Australian reported how Michael Corby had admitted to his drug record. He said he had been caught with a quantity of cannabis in his late 20s, but denied the drugs were his.
"I got a $400 fine for about 2g of marijuana which wasn't mine," he told The Weekend Australian in 2005. "Some girl had it and they busted the whole joint and I had to go along for the ride." He said his own drugs charges were laid during Joh Bjelke-Petersen's reign.
"They (the charges) were all scrubbed, because it was the Bjelke-Petersen days, where if you had an ugly face or you were in the wrong place you got pushed around."
Lateline also alleged that three weeks before Schapelle Corby made her ill-fated trip to Bali in 2004, a Queensland police informant told authorities that Michael Corby Sr was trafficking drugs into Bali.
The police informant and former heroin addict Kim Moore told Queensland Police that "Michael is involved with the transport of these drugs" and that "large quantities are being moved to Bali".
Ms Moore told Lateline that the "Michael" in her statement was Michael Corby Sr.
She said Mr Corby was "very close to Tony Lewis and he is involved with the making that Tony does with his drugs, and the running."
The program said flight records showed that Mr Corby travelled to Bali on September 4, 2004, or four weeks before Schapelle was arrested at Denpassar Airport.
However, last night a spokesman for Queensland Police said an investigation into statements made by an informant against Mr Corby had been investigated and were found to be unjustified.
He said a full investigation had failed to link him to any involvement in the drug trade.
Michael Corby moved to Middlemount, Queensland, in the 1980s, where he lived next door to Tony Lewis. Ten years later they moved to Iveragh, on the Queensland coast.
Police raided Mr Lewis's property in September 2004 and found 5kg of marijuana in vacuum-sealed plastic bags.
The ABC alleges that Ms Moore made her statement to police on September 16, 2004, three weeks before Schapelle Corby was arrested in Bali.
link: