BOMBER, BIKIES & BIG BUST
Cats ex-coach linked to bikies as drug cops swoop Thompson arrested, released after questioning Ex-wife, Cats chief Cook tell of fears for Bomber
A LARA man with bikie links has been charged as part of the Geelong police drug trafficking operation that led to the arrest of former Cats premiership coach Mark Bomber Thompson.
Lara’s Karl ‘ Bang Bang’ Holt, believed to have longstanding links to the Geelong chapter of the Bandidos, was arrested and remanded in custody last Thursday, along with a 22-year-old Mill Park woman and a 28-year-old Port Melbourne man believed to be living at Thompson’s home.
Thompson’s Port Melbourne home was raided as part of the operation on Friday. The AFL great presented himself by appointment to police yesterday and was released pending enquiries.
Senior police told the Geelong Advertiser they descended on properties in Lara and Port Melbourne, and a car alongside the Princes Highway at Corio, last Thursday, where they allegedly uncovered a substantial amount of ice, amphetamines, cash and a firearm.
“On Thursday night there was a 31-year-old male from Lara arrested and remanded in custody. He’s been charged with trafficking a commercial quantity of methamphetamine and amphetamine ... and firearm offences,” Senior Sergeant Rod Lloyd said.
Also arrested were Port Melbourne’s Thomas Windsor and Mill Park’s Katia Drcec. They will face court in April after being arrested by detectives from the Geelong divisional response unit.
“The investigations have been running for a number of months and are ongoing,” SenSgt Lloyd said.
Holt was jailed in 2016 after he pleaded guilty to trafficking methamphetamine and firearms offences following a series of raids across Geelong by the Echo Task Force.
Dubbed ‘Bang Bang’ due to the tattoos on his fingers, Holt is believed to have once been the Geelong Bandido chapter’s sergeant-at-arms.
Cats CEO Brian Cook and former president Frank Costa were among those to come out yesterday to express their con- cern for the two-time premiership coach.
“I had (11 years) with Mark as a colleague, he’s a premiership coach two times, and you earn a deep respect for him and the way he worked,” Cook told 3AW radio. “And this has occurred now. It’s rather sad, really, and disappointing. And like a lot of other people I’m worried about Bomber and his health and I just hope that things do work out in the end.”
Those who have spoken to Thompson say he had allowed someone to stay at his converted Port Melbourne warehouse and they were the target of the police operation.
“Bomber has got nothing to do with anything like this,’’ he said.
“It was someone staying at his house ... It’s someone staying there. It’s not him.
“I know it’s not Bomber.... he’s in the clear.’’
In 2015, Thompson distanced himself from illicit drug use, saying he was the victim of a smear campaign at the time he was a candidate for the vacant Gold Coast Suns job.
“They can do whatever they want to me … over the last 10 or 15 years there’s been that many personal things said against me that you just get this exterior that nothing can actually break you,” he said.
“Nothing is going to break me.”
Thompson led the Cats to premiership success in 2007 and 2009 before controversially leaving the club at the end of 2010 citing fatigue. He later signed as an Essendon assistant coach and was fined $30,000 for his part in the Essendon supplements saga in 2012.
“It’s rather sad, really, and disappointing. And like a lot of other people I’m worried about Bomber and his health and I just hope that things do work out in the end.”
CATS CEO BRIAN COOK
“The silliest thing he ever did was leaving Geelong. It’s all gone downhill from there ... it’s been one thing after another.”
EX-WIFE JANA CLACK