Rapid fall of former top cop

Mark Standen. Photo / Supplied

Mark Standen is going to learn how the other half live. The former NSW crime investigator uesed to put people behind bars. Now he is about to go to prison himself.

The 54-year-old crossed the line from cop to crook after he got too close to an informant, James Kinch, an international drugs trafficker arrested in Sydney in 2003.

On Thursday, a NSW Supreme Court jury found the former assistant director of investigations for the NSW Crime Commission plotted to import 300kg of pseudoephedrine, worth many millions of dollars.

Standen, an experienced narcotics investigator, was accused of being the "eyes and ears" of the conspiracy with Kinch and foodstuffs businessman Bakhos "Bill" Jalalaty between early 2006 and June 2008.

The jury was not told Jalalaty had pleaded guilty to the conspiracy last year and was jailed for a minimum of six and a maximum of 10 years.

The pseudoephedrine was to be imported from Pakistan in a container of rice.

Police found no illegal drugs in the shipment which arrived in Sydney in April 2008. But crown prosecutor Tim Game SC said the men believed it would contain the banned substance.

After a trial lasting almost five months, Standen was convicted of the conspiracy, of taking part in the supply of 300kg of the substance and conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He appeared ashen but showed no emotion at the verdicts.

Standen, whose law enforcement career began in 1975, spent 25 days in the witness box, when he "lied without pause", according to Game.

Much of the evidence related to intercepted phone calls, bugged conversations and coded emails, in which the men took on female personae, talked of beauty salons, and referred to "children" when they meant the illegal substance.

The Crown contended Standen's motive was his desperate financial plight and an "improper relationship" developed with Kinch.

After being arrested in 2003 for drug and proceeds of crime offences, Kinch left Australia when the charges were dropped and he forfeited more than A$1 million to the commission.

Kinch manipulated the system successfully, and Standen - who had "intense, personal contact" with him - doing everything he could to help him, Game said.

The investigator, who had become Kinch's handler after he turned informant, became "irrevocably compromised" once he accepted a gift of A$47,500 from him in 2005, Game said.

Standen testified that he believed Kinch had reformed, was a legitimate businessman and no longer involved with a Dutch drug syndicate.

The jury was told of A$1 million in cash provided by Kinch to Jalalaty, in part to provide a suitable front for the importation, which was mostly lost in an investment.

Standen said Jalalaty, who was married to an ex-colleague, had many business expansion plans and wanted Standen to become involved in them. While he had a very good job, Standen said "it was hectic in the extreme" and he was interested in Jalalaty's plans. His barrister Mark Ierace SC submitted that if Kinch and Jalalaty were plotting a drug importation, Standen knew nothing about it.

- AAP