She was a pretty young suburban girl from an ordinary family who used to chat on Facebook about her latest hair extensions, boys and going on holiday in Asia with her folks.
But at the beginning of last year, when Simone Baumber was still just 19 years old, a darker element began showing up in her Facebook posts.
Photographs appeared of women in balaclavas posing with firearms and in bed with a man brandishing a loaded pistol.
Where once there was a fresh-faced, dark-haired girl smiling sweetly with her father, now Baumber appeared pounting, in heavily eye makeup and dyed-blonde hair. She was living in a world of drugs, guns and money.
Simone became 'Simba', part of a criminal gang that trafficked cocaine, ice, ecstasy and cannabis and kept ammunition, firearms and weapons like a rubber baton to enforce the gang's activity.
Simone Baumber was a pretty, uncomplicated teenager from southern Sydney who chatted about hair extensions, boyfriends and parties before she became embroiled in a criminal gang that carried weapons, large amounts of cash and sold drugs from its headquarters in Miranda, 20km south of the city centre
In this 2012 picture posted on Facebook, Simone Baumber, then 18, she chatted innocently with friends about her hair extensions, saying she knew her hair looked 'way too thin'
Simone Baumber, from a family of churchgoers, became known members of the drug gang as 'Simba' and worked as a drug record keeper who also smuggled cannabis and ice into Parlea prison for her boyfriend
When police forced their way into the drug gang HQ in Miranda, southern Sydney, they found Simone Baumber coming down the stairs into the living room (pictured) where 138.5g of green powdered amphetamine BZL was found in an XBox container, along with electronic scales, knuckle dusters and an expandable baton
In the master bedroom (pictured) of the drug syndicate's premises, where Simone Baumber slept, police found a glass pipe and $1550 in addition to the $1575 they found in her handbag. When Ms Baumber called her boyfriend in prison, he told her to hide drugs the police did not find
The gang was run by Ms Baumber's boyfriend and his cousin, a pistol-wielding steroid user, and its members included men known as Skinny, Fatty, Richie and Stevie.
Before she was arrested and charged - at just 21 - with serious drug and criminal offences, Ms Baumber was caught in police surveillance hiding drugs internally and smuggling them to her boyfriend in Parklea Correctional Centre, in western Sydney.
While pregnant, she handled powdered amphetamine which at one point caused her boyfriend to fret down the phone from prison about her absorbing the drugs through her skin.
Simone Baumber, pictured with her father Kevin on a family cruise in 2009, when she was a high school student at Gymea in southern Sydney, and living a normal family life
Simone Baumber pictured left in August 2013, shortly after she had just turned 19, and at right after she became involved with a drug syndicate that sold amphetamines, cocaine, cannabis and ice and threatened rival gangs with violence
In taped conversations, police heard Simone Baumber's boyfriend talk to her on the phone about an arrangement for her and a girlfriend to smuggle cannabis and cocaine internally or in their mouths to him in Parklea prison
Daily Mail Australia cannot name Ms Baumber's boyfriend, or the other gang leader - except to give them the pseudonyms Pete and Harley - due to pending court action surrounding their alleged drug and crime gang offences.
What happened to Simone Baumber, according to a person close to the case, is typical of what can happen when an innocent, attractive young woman falls in love with a man involved in dangerous criminal activities.
The person said Ms Baumber was from 'a normal suburban family.'
Her father, Terry Baumber, who is secretary of the South Hurstville Uniting Church, told Daily Mail Australia he didn't want to speak about his daughter because it was 'a bit sensitive and we are just trying to get through it'.
in a cupboard above the oven in the kitchen (pictured) of the drug house where Simone Baumber lived, police found vials of testosterone and steroids and syringes, cannabis, numerous mobile phone SIM cards. In the garage, dozens of rounds of ammunition and shotgun shells were found
Simone Baumber (pictured) attended Gymea High School, leaving before her HSC, but appeared to be an ordinary, fun-loving young girl before she was led into a world of drugs
Simone Baumner (pictured) went from a beach girl to an alleged ice smoker with a boyfriend who told one of his dealers from prison to cut the drug he supplied her because 'she has to do it at the end of the day'
Simone Baumber pictured (left) in September 2013, just months before she became embroiled in the drug syndicate, and (right) more recently, with a friend just before police placed phone taps on the men allegedly running the gang she worked for
Ms Baumber is due in the next few months to be sentenced for participating in group criminal activity, supplying cannabis and amphetamines at Parklea prison, supplying 138.5g of the amphetamine BZL, 14.3g of methamphetamine and 14 ecstasy tablets.
It was through the activities of one of the men in the criminal gang that Ms Baumber first came to the attention of the NSW Police.
On May 15 last year, police conducting random breath tests along Taren Point Road in southern Sydney signalled a man driving with Simone Baumber in her Renault Clio to stop.
He ignored the direction and pulled the car into a break down lane 70m away before jumping from the car and running into the bush.
Simone Baumber (above) first came to police attention when random breath test officers stopped a car she was a passenger in
Ms Baumber, in the passenger seat, told police she did not know who the driver was but admitted it was her car.
Police found 10g of cannabis leaf on her person, and $1880 in her wallet. Asked about the cash, she said 'I don't know. I just have it. I don't know where it's from. I am just so out of it now.'
Police charged her with not disclosing the identity of the driver, possessing a prohibited drug and having goods in custody, for the cash.
Police had already placed a listening device warrant on the mobile phone of the drug gang organiser Harley.
On May 25, Harley told a woman during a taped phone conversation that Ms Baumber was 'done the other night with money of [the gang's director, Pete] she got done with eighteen hundred'.
They then discussed seeking bail for the gang's director, Pete, who had been arrested on unrelated charges.
A week later, Harley and Ms Baumber spoke with Pete who was on the phone from prison and they discussed going to the police station to get the $1800 back, using a made-up story.
Meanwhile, police had been listening to conversations between Pete, who had illegally acquired a mobile phone in Parklea prison, and Ms Baumber and Harley, which would lead to their next action.
On June 6, Pete told his brother over the phone to 'make up a half ball' of amphetamine and also make up 'one of pot' which Ms Baumber and Harley would bring into Parklea prison.
Pete refers to a previous visit and calls Harley a 'dope', complaining that if Corrective Services had made Harley open his mouth, he would have been 'f***ed'.
Ms Baumber (pictured in 2013) became involved in the gang in 2014 and at one point, while pregnant and handling powdered methamphetamine, was told by her boyfriend to be careful in case she absorbed the drug through her skin in the process of transferring into capsules for sale
Ms Baumber (pictured) became the gang's record keeper, selling 'eight balls' (3.5g of amphetamine) and living with the gang's boss who continued to deal from jail, telling his runners to threaten a rival that he would burn 'his mum's house down' if they neglected to pay alleged drug debts
Pete said he got the 'other one up' but couldn't get the 'pot' up because it was too 'big and that he was going to have to 's*** it out'.
The conversation ended with an agreement that the women should conceal prohibited drugs in their vaginas for the upcoming visit.
On June 7, a conversation between Pete and Ms Baumber discussed supplying the prohibited drugs via her vagina or in her mouth.
But when Harley called Pete from the car park to say Ms Baumber and a friend of hers were ready for the visit and to supply drugs, Harley said 'mouths are too small' and they would have to sort something out.
In a July 3, call from Pete to Ms Baumber, they discussed moving and cleaning the town house where she was living, the drug syndicate's headquarters in the southern suburb of Miranda.
Visiting Parklea prison with a close friend, Simone Baumber (pictured) later pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs into the jail for her boyfriend to use and sell
Pete recommended a cleaner who 'already came to the house and she already knows what goes on, you know what I mean?'.
In another conversation between Ms Baumber and Pete on July 8, they discussed cash she was holding that amounted to more than $5000.
At 11.11am on July 9, police with a search warrant forced their way into the Miranda town house.
Officers found Ms Baumber alone in the house, walking down the stairs into the living room.
They searched Ms Baumber's handbag and found $1575 cash, betting receipts and a TAB card in her name.
Officers then found 138.5g of green powdered amphetamine, BZL, in an X-Box container in the living room, electronic scales, knuckle dusters, an expandable baton, drug capsules, coffee grinder with powder remnants. In a cupboard above the oven, they found vials of testosterone and steroids and syringes, cannabis, and numerous mobile phone SIM cards.
In the garage, officers uncovered dozens of rounds of ammunition including 12 gauge Winchester shotgun shells, .223 Remington and Highland AX rounds, plus a gun cleaning kit. Back in the house, Ms Baumber directed them to a further $1550 in her bedroom, where they also found a glass smoking pipe.
Ms Baumber left the premises, saying she had an appointment, and police intercepted a conversation between her and Pete in prison, in which she said she expected to be arrested on return to Miranda, saying 'I'm the only one in the house there's drugs and stuff in there'.
After listening to Ms Baumber tell her boyfriend on the phone about their July 9 drug raid and discuss a 'new drug hiding place,' police returned to the town house (pictured) and found drug bags buried in protein powder
When Ms Baumber and her boyfriend discussed her moving out of the drug house and cleaning up, she objected, saying it was strewn with drugs
Ms Baumber told Pete the police took 'the green powder' but left 'a lot of the stuff I like', along with cash and scales. Pete directed her to hide the drugs in a different place in the home and to get rid of the remaining $2850 cash.
Police returned at 4.10pm the next day and located a knotted glove containing drug bags buried in a bag of protein powder in the kitchen.
In the drug bags was 13.6g of methamphetamine, 0.7g of amphetamine, 3.4g of cocaine, 14 ecstasy tablets and 196.2g of crystals used to cut the drugs down.
Police also searched a cupboard missed in the first search and found more digital scales, cannabis, SIM cards and restricted substances.
The conversations lawfully tapped by police the green powdered amphetamine were described as 'the s**t ones', which Baumber nevertheless made up into capsules.
A recent family photo of Ms Baumber with her father Kevin, who said the family is still trying to work through the charges his daughter is facing
Ms Baumber was pregnant at the time, and Pete cautioned her, 'be careful doing it because that stuff soaks through your skin'.
In a conversation about drug distribution with Harley, Pete asks whether he has 'gone and seen the runners'. Harley answers, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've gone and seen everyone bro, f***in making collections, everything's earning as usual'.
Pete then discusses seeking legal advice about handing in illegal firearms in exchange for bail, and the pair subsequently talk about handing in machine guns.
Pete and Harley discuss their supply network and changes to the profit ratio while Pete is in custody, netting Harley $3500 and Pete $1500 a week, with Pete assuring Harley he would have no 'headaches' and that 'all the boys know' to help if there were problems.
Pete encouraged Harley to increase the drug supply, saying, 'Alright, you pump it, pump it, pump it, fine more' and Harley replying, 'yeah, yeah, I'll do everything for you cuz'.
They also discussed collecting drug debts from a person called the 'fat ranga' and that if the debt wasn't paid, Harley was to take the 'car or the boat ... Stevie knows, either take that new Holden Barina or the boat'.
In another conversation, the pair discuss having $10,000 after the most recent drug run and possessing drugs which should earn them a profit.
'...Between you and me and my thing we should have five or six grand coming in a week, profit,' Pete tells Harley.
Harley talks about the 'fat ranga's' drug debt, saying 'that fat b***h still needs to pay me' and in a conversation a few days later between Harley and another man he says, 'We need to go and put the heavy on Peppa pig which I will need a couple of people for'.
On May 29 last year, police intercepted a conversation between Pete in prison and Harley about drug debts and other drug suppliers operating in their 'Area.'
When Harley reports back that one dealer named Cameron 'reckon she doesn't owe you anything', Pete responds, 'Go knock him out, take the boys an knock him out. He's a lying dog. ... Tell him you're not going to play games and tell him I'll burn his mum's place down I don't give a f***.
'Tell him I'm burning that the c***s let it go for this long and tried not to pay. Tell him... he's the one c*** whose boiling me blood at the moment.'
Ms Baumber (pictured with a cardboard replica of a cannabis leaf) was from an ordinary Australian family who became involved in a her boyfriend's world of drugs and crime
On June 2, 2014, police intercepted a conversation in which Pete and Ms Baumber negotiated with a third person called Mitch to supply the green powdered methamphetamine.
Pete and Harley had a conversation two days later about a drug debt held by 'Simone'. Pete directed Harley to have her pay additional sums to reduce the debt and to cut the drug he supplied her with additives because 'she has to do it at the end of the day'.
Police took this as a comment about exploiting the drug user's addiction.
On June 10, Pete and Harley discussed police action against them, with Harley saying 'they are trying to take down the syndicate ... you understand how long they have been looking at us, they got heaps of photos.'
On June 11, Harley talked with Stevie about Ms Baumber's role within the gang as a drug record keeper.
On June 12, Ms Baumber talks with Pete on the phone and he warn her to be 'on the ball' because his former girlfriend's house was raided by police the previous night.
Baumber says, 'What do you mean? There's so much stuff here. There's a whole bag full right now'.
Peter responds, 'Shut the f*** up your phone might be tapped too. So be careful.'
Pete later says to Simone and two others on the call that there are 'idiots running this operation'.
He says, 'I'm stressed out, this is what the gaol's doin' to me I've come in and all that stuff is out there and I've got idiots trying to run my operations and they can't think for themselves.'
In another conversation from prison, Pete talks with the man Skinny about buying 'Blue batman' ecstasy tablets, with Skinny telling Pete they were considered responsible for causing a number of overdoses in Sydney. Pete persisted in arranging potential supply of the drug.
In further evidence tendered in the police facts about the drug syndicate, investigating officers located a police uniform, a large rectangular red and blue light similar to those used in some police vehicles, firearm 'trigger locks' and a Glock pistol, similar to the NSW standard issue police weapon.
No comments:
Post a Comment