Jamie Gao boasted about 'massive' drug deal before he was killed, court hears
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Version 0 of 1. In the weeks before Jamie Gao was allegedly murdered by Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara, he boasted about a deal that was “going to be massive”. On the opening day of Rogerson and McNamara’s trial at the supreme court on Monday, crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell said Gao met the pair on 20 May last year believing he was “shortly going to be very rich”. Instead, when he stepped into a Padstow storage unit in Sydney’s south-west he was shot and killed. “[He was] dragged into the back of a white station wagon and his body was dumped out at sea,” Maxwell said. Six days later Gao’s body was spotted by a fisherman inside a silver surfboard cover and wrapped in a blue tarpaulin. Maxwell said it is the crown’s case that Gao was shot sometime between entering the storage unit with McNamara at 1.45pm, and before his body was seen being dragged out in the surfboard cover just over half an hour later at 2.18pm. While it was unclear which of the two men shot him, Maxwell said both have been charged with the murder on the basis of a joint criminal enterprise. Rogerson also faces the alternative charge of being an accessory to the murder. Both men have also been charged with supplying a large commercial quantity of prohibited drugs. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Four days after the alleged murder, police seized a white station wagon at the underground car park at McNamara’s unit in Cronulla, Maxwell said. Inside they found a brown pillow case and a backpack containing 2.78kg of methylamphetamine, or ice. Maxwell said the same car had been the one Gao’s body was dragged into at the Padstow storage site. Before his death Gao had been involved in the supply of prohibited drugs, and had told his cousin that the deal was going to be massive and he would be rich soon, Maxwell told the court. He is expected to continue his opening address to the 15-person jury on Tuesday. |