Pod Insights ABC Rewind The Drug Grannies | Too Old to Run | 01 About this episode In the summer of 1978, narcotics agents discovered the largest ever haul of illicit drugs to land in Australia, stashed inside a campervan belonging to two elderly American women tourists. But were these women truly drug smugglers or naive puppets in an elaborate plot masterminded by someone else?
Transcript 4,261 words · 12 speakers
0:01 Speaker 00 Imagine if a trusted relative offered you the trip of a lifetime, an overland odyssey in a custom designer motorhome.
0:13 Speaker 00 Well, this was the offer made in late 1977 to two retired American women, Vera Todd and her companion Floris Basir.
0:23 Speaker 00 Neither woman had been overseas before, so the offer was just too good to refuse. But five months into the journey, that trip spiraled into a nightmare when the women found themselves at the centre of the largest drug haul ever made in Australia at the time.
0:40 Speaker 01 We understand that 1.9 tonnes, and that's an awful lot of hash, has been found in a camper van.
0:45 Speaker 02 I said, "What's Silverwater?" He said, "Well, that's a prison for women."
0:50 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome to ABC Rewind. Hilary Harper here with an astonishing true story about family, deceit, betrayal, and a drug kingpin who got off scot-free.
1:05 Speaker 00 Sandy Logan was a young journalist when the drug granny's case hit the headlines, and he found the story both shocking and intriguing. There was the age of the alleged drug smugglers, the amount of high-grade hashish found in their motorhome, and the criminal conviction handed to them. Sandy's written a book about the case called Betrayed, and in this first episode of our two-part series, he winds the clock back to the late 1970s for the start of this very wild ride. Here's the story of the drug grannies too old to run.
1:46 Speaker 03 In 1978, a story caught my eye, and little did I know then that it would consume my life for many years after.
1:54 Speaker 02 Well, as you say, your lifestyle,
1:59 Speaker 02 Floris and I both being retired, worked. Like fifty-nine years of how old you are.
2:05 Speaker 03 That's Vera Todd Hayes, who everyone, including me, called Toddy. She met her companion, Florriece Basir, whose nickname was Beezy, in the early 1950s on the Douglas Aircraft Assembly Line in Los Angeles.
2:20 Speaker 02 We found a little place back in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon, with a population of about forty-one hundred people.
2:27 Speaker 03 Together, Toddy and Beezy enjoyed an outdoors lifestyle, traveling around the US in a motorhome.
2:40 Speaker 03 In 1977, Toddy's nephew Vern offered his aunt and Beezy what sounded like the trip of a lifetime: to drive his brand-new Mercedes-Benz van from Stuttgart, Germany, all the way to Bombay, today known as Mumbai. Even though Toddy and Beezy didn't know it, their itinerary would follow the classic hippie trail. This was the route for a generation of travelers who trailed flowers in their hair and enjoyed the offerings of the local cannabis cafes and hashish shops. The two women mulled over Vern's offer.
3:14 Speaker 02 I said, "Well, I don't know." I said, "I'd have to ask Beezy first." He said, "Well, she can go along as a travel companion." "Oh, expenses paid, and you've never been over to Europe, and driving through all these countries you've read about?" Because we both have belonged to the National Geographic for over twenty years. So we thought, "Gee, why pass up a chance like this?"
3:33 Speaker 03 Vern Todd was an American-born yachtie, actor, handyman, and budding businessman. In 1966, in his mid-twenty's, he settled in Australia. It was well-known in the Todd family that Vern considered Toddy his favorite aunt. So the trip offer was in keeping with their relationship.
3:52 Speaker 04 I loved those ladies. They were jovial and kind and decent people.
3:59 Speaker 03 That's Carol Brewer, a neighbor of Toddy and Beezy's. She knew them in La Pine in the seventies as they were deliberating over the trip.
4:07 Speaker 04 They were so excited about going on this trip. They went, "When are you leaving? When are you..." They said, "Well, when my nephew gets all the plans made." And, you know, they were really looking forward to this trip.
4:25 Speaker 03 On the 26th of August 1977, Toddy and Beezy flew to Germany to collect the motorhome and start their exciting overland odyssey.
4:36 Speaker 03 In Stuttgart, they collected the 26-foot, that's eight meters, long, left-hand-drive camper van. A customs carnet was issued in Toddy's name as she was doing the driving. And this document affixed to her passport meant the women could enter and exit international borders with the foreign-registered van.
4:57 Speaker 03 Their destination over a three-month period was Bombay. At various points along the way, nephew Vern or his business associates would meet up with the women. This was part of a plan to promote his new product, an inflatable tubby bath for babies. Once Toddy and Beezy hit Bombay, they'd hand the van back to Vern and fly home to the US. This was the women's first time overseas, and during the trip, they kept diaries of their travels. They also sent postcards to family and friends back home and described the extraordinary events they encountered. There were language barriers, the vagaries of foreign cuisine, and wildly varying driving conditions which often terrified them.
5:43 Speaker 03 And then there were the bandits.
5:47 Speaker 05 Did they tell you about the time that they were going? I don't remember which country. Iran or someplace they were going through.
5:54 Speaker 03 That's Nancy Carter, another Lepine neighbor, who received postcards from Toddy and Beezy during their trip. She's speaking to me down a scratchy phone line.
6:04 Speaker 05 And Beezy didn't drive, and Toddy was tired, so they stopped like in the middle of the desert. And Beezy sat up with lights on. And that was the only thing that kept them safe because the nomads or whatever they were there circled that motorhome, I guess, all night long.
6:23 Speaker 06 No kidding, pretty soon the women and the children all disappeared.
6:26 Speaker 03 Here's Beesie, back home in the US years later, remembering that night in the desert.
6:31 Speaker 06 And it got dark, and all of a sudden we did look, and here was the bandits. So we rolled up windows, locked doors, pulled drapes and everything. And they're standing out there making noises, pounding on the thing. First I got all the knives we had in the place, all the tire jacks and tools and hammers, and I laid them all out on the counter. I thought, "Well, if you break in the windows, somebody's gonna get hurt." I was trying to think of the word. What is the word that means... Baba. Baba. Baba can mean friend, it can also mean son of a bitch. Depends on the intonation you use. So I would try to make my voice as deep as possible, so they'd not think there was a man in there. I'd say, "Hey, baba!" And I'm nasty, but like, "Hey, friend, stop it."
7:15 Speaker 06 But I read all night, and they pounded all night. They started getting daylight about, oh, 5:30, 6:15 to 6:00, and they disappeared. But we found out later that the only reason they didn't break in, the light. They couldn't figure what the lights were on in there, and that's what saved us.
7:33 Speaker 03 Toddy and Beesie's 1977 overland journey had taken them from Germany through Austria, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And once they hit India, they thought they were on the home stretch. But as they were making their way to Bombay, they hit the monsoon season.
7:58 Speaker 06 We get about 30 kilometers out of New Delhi, south of New Delhi. Looks like we got a river that's about four miles long, going right across, I won't say highway, the track that we was riding on. Anyhow, I couldn't tell how deep it was, because there's no traffic. We were the only ones there. So I said to Toddy, "But I better get out in front here and look for potholes, because, I mean, real deep." So I rolled up my pants, which was kinda stupid. I might as well just let them down, because I was way over my hips. But anyhow, I started feeling around my feet walking and she had to keep the motor going so that the water wouldn't come up the exhaust pipe, you know, just keep like sound like a off-road motor. And she's in this big Mercedes and what you are was still running in, that's how it
8:43 Speaker 06 was. And this is out in what they call Bengal tiger country and also bandit country. So finally anyhow, when we get through there, Toddy finds out that the radiator and it was going in red, so we pull off and we finally get the hood open and here the radiator had bounced off of the mounting bolts. So she finally got it off of the road and down, we went down a gradual incline and settled right there.
9:17 Speaker 03 This mechanical issue with the van was to be the least of the women's worries. When they finally reached Bombay, one of Vern's associates, Philip Shine, an Australian antiques dealer, gave Toddy and Beezy an ultimatum: fly to Australia and pick up the van there. If they didn't cooperate, they were told they'd be hounded for the rest of their lives because Philip Shine told the women that the customs document, the carné, required them to stay with the vehicle all the way to Australia or face arrest. He also threatened violence by unnamed people. Because it was Toddy's nephew Vern who'd organized the trip, the women felt obliged to do as they were told.
10:00 Speaker 03 But Toddy and Beezy insisted that once the van was on the dock down under, that was it, they were done. And so on the 10th of November 1977, Toddy and Beezy boarded a flight to Australia. Once on the ground in Sydney, they had to wait several weeks for the ship carrying the camper van to reach port. They made the most of their time in a country they'd never planned on visiting.
10:29 Speaker 03 Taking in Sydney, its harbour, and even attending the Colgate International Women's Tennis Championships, where they cheered on Yvonne Gulegon-Cole. Toddy and Beesey continued writing postcards home, though they didn't utter a word to friends or family that they were in Australia, essentially against their wishes.
10:50 Speaker 03 In early December 1977, the two women headed to Melbourne as instructed to collect the camper van. And while Toddy and Beesey didn't know it, turns out that other people were also keeping watch on the Melbourne docks for the van's arrival.
11:04 Speaker 07 We had three days' notice that the van was arriving in Melbourne.
11:09 Speaker 03 That's Inspector Bob Drain of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
11:17 Speaker 03 So folks, what I haven't told you yet in this extraordinary tale is why narcotics agents become involved in the story of two elderly American women and their motorhome. You see, from the mid-1970s, Australian intelligence analysts had detected a pattern of vehicle importations from Bombay, supposedly by tourists planning to drive around Australia. The only thing was, the vehicles turned out to be crammed full of hashish. The women's motorhome fit the profile as a likely drug smuggling operation. Here's Bob Drain talking about Toddy and Beesey's van from a 1981 Four Corners program.
11:56 Speaker 07 We knew there were narcotics on board, but we didn't know exactly how much. But we figured there were enough to mount a large-scale operation. So we put cars in this area. We had one parked down the road down here, another one towards the city. And we had an officer on the wharf in uniform to cover anything that happened in that area.
12:15 Speaker 03 As Christmas 1977 approached, Bob Drain and a 12-agent undercover surveillance team swung into action.
12:25 Speaker 03 Part of a larger task force known as Operation Genius, Drain's offside was Agent Michelle Coorey, who we'll know as Mish.
12:33 Speaker 08 In the Bureau, I really got down and got my hands dirty. These busts, some of them actually ended up really sadly. I felt I was doing a bit of a job, really, that I could be proud of. You know, I had friends who actually smoked dope, cannabis. But when it came to the hard stuff, the heroin, morphine, and the cutting compounds that they used, I thought, get this scourge off the streets.
13:10 Speaker 03 Heading into work just before her 1977 annual leave, Mish soon discovered she might have to change her holiday plans.
13:17 Speaker 08 I think it might have been the 13th of December. Went into work and just for a normal day's work, which was never normal anyway, and found myself in a surveillance car heading up the highway, after being briefed, of course. I recall that our persons of interest were actually some elderly ladies. They were around about my grandmother's age, and I was a bit stunned at that.
13:48 Speaker 03 Agents Bob Drain and Mish Coorey went undercover to monitor Tadi and Bezi's movements in Australia 24 hours a day, following the women on the road, in campgrounds, eating at restaurants, or downing a schooner at the pub. Everything. Their first encounter with Tadi and Bezi was in a laundromat in a Shepperton campground in country Victoria. It was the first night of Tadi and Bezi's Australian leg of their now extended overland trip.
14:17 Speaker 08 We never knew where they were going the following day. We had little clothing, we had the clothes that we stood up in. We weren't actually expecting to start a five or six week surveillance.
14:32 Speaker 08 So I asked my fellow narcotics agents that were part of the surveillance teams, and there were about four or five cars, and about at least 10 surveillance people. And I just asked them to give me their socks and their jocks, because the ladies had headed to the laundry.
14:57 Speaker 07 This was the laundromat where we first established contact with the two old ladies. We had a female agent come in here, do some washing alongside them, and strike up a conversation with a view to finding out where they're going next.
15:09 Speaker 08 I found myself doing a wash and hoping that they would come back for their washing, which they did whilst I was still there, and struck up a conversation and just mentioned that I was heading off, heading north, and during the conversation they sort of said, "Oh, they're heading up to", I can't recall exactly where it was. So we thought that we knew exactly where they would be going to the following day so that we could have enough funds sent to the post office at that particular city or town.
15:48 Speaker 08 And that's how we rolled after that first meeting.
15:56 Speaker 03 As the covert surveillance of Toddy and Beezy continued, the agents had to secretly break into the women's van and install a listening device. It was attached to the van's radio.
16:07 Speaker 09 When the two ladies drove the van from Melbourne to Sydney, agents from the Sydney office were called in to assist with the ongoing surveillance.
16:16 Speaker 03 This is former narcotics agent John Shawbrook, who was part of Operation Genius. Here he is reading from his unpublished manuscript about his time as an agent.
16:30 Speaker 09 From Sydney, the two grannies drove the motor home up the Pacific Highway towards New South Wales central coast. It was a Christmas school holiday period. And when we arrived at the coastal township of Gosford, it was crowded. The grannies were fortunate to get a berth for their van in the crowded Gosford caravan park. It was decided by the officers in charge to plant a bug in the van, a microphone and transmitter. Whilst the ladies were dining at the Gosford RSL, I was chosen as a volunteer to enter the van and conceal and connect a small radio transmitter up underneath the dash. I connected our transmitter to what I believed to be the correct wire.
17:15 Speaker 09 And a dim red light glowed on the transmitter. Success.
17:23 Speaker 03 Toddie and Beazie, still oblivious to the surveillance, took a shopping trip in Gosford.
17:28 Speaker 09 They then drove out of the caravan park. We followed them from an appropriate distance up through the township of Gosford and into a slightly more industrial area, where, to our surprise and horror, they turned into the driveway of a car radio repair shop.
17:50 Speaker 03 It was at this point that narcotics agent John Shawbrook had to make a call.
17:56 Speaker 09 As the ladies entered the front door of the shop, I ran to the workshop area and entered via a side door.
18:02 Speaker 03 Whether to jeopardise the entire operation by blowing his cover or instead, bringing the radio repairman into a secret. So he flashed his agent's badge and leaned in to have a quiet word with the repairman.
18:15 Speaker 09 He told me that they had said that their radio was not working and could he have a look at it? I decided that he needed to know more. I connected a radio transmitter up to it last night and that must have killed the radio. "When you have a look at it, can you leave the transmitter hidden up under the dash and in a working condition?" "Yeah, sure," he said. "But they said the radio hasn't been working since they first started driving the van in Melbourne."
18:43 Speaker 03 Undercover police work can be routine, even boring. But occasionally it throws up the unexpected. And for Narc's Bob Drain and Mish Currie, this meant being welcomed into the very motorhome they were surveilling. Mish Currie takes up the story.
18:58 Speaker 08 The last time we ran into them in an undercover capacity was at the Central Coast Leagues Club. We overimbibed, the four of us. And I think we had a meal together. That's how overimbibing we did. And they invited us back to the camp van. And we thought, wow, this is pretty great, dear me. Anyway, upon entering the van, we sat at their little four-seater table. And I was just totally overcome by the aroma of hash. And I'd already overimbibed, but I don't think the fumes did me any good either.
19:44 Speaker 08 I actually think, I'll admit, that when we did leave the van, I left my handbag in the van with my badge. It said Mishel Currie, Federal Bureau of Narcotics, all of that. Anyway, I said to Bob, I said, "Oh, I've got to go back to the van." I said, "I've left my bloody handbag there." To which, Bob, a couple of expletives. And I went knocking at the door of the van. The lights were out, the whole lot. And one of the girls said, "Who is it?" And I said, "It's Mish. I've left my handbag there." She said, "Oh, we would have brought it to the club tomorrow." I said, "No." I said, "Actually, I said, I need it tonight."
20:28 Speaker 08 I said, "Because, you know, I've got my women's thing." Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So, anyway, I've got my handbag. And there you go. And, well, had they been really nosy parkers, they would have realised that we were on to them. So I was not compromised.
20:53 Speaker 03 Toddy remembers the same late night drinks with Mitch Currie and Bob Drain. She thought the undercover narcs were simply two down-to-earth friendly Aussies.
21:02 Speaker 02 We ran into Bob and Mitch again. We gambled, we drank together, we were on first-name bases. And I think it was about the third night, oh, we had had too much to drink. So we decided to take a taxi and say goodnight to them. And Bob says, "No, don't do that, we'll drive you back." I said, "Well, fine." So he and Mitch drove us back to Terrego. I said, "Well, as long as you're here." I guess it was about 1:30, 2:00 in the morning, "Come in and have a nightcap." So they both came in, sat down. It wasn't one nightcap, they were there two or three hours. Fed them some sandwiches and more cocktails and more conversation and just good friends having a wonderful time.
21:37 Speaker 07 We thought that they were very, very cool people, inviting us back to the van, regardless of what they knew what we were or not. Couple of very cool customers. In the back of my mind, I felt that perhaps there was a bit of con man in them, or con woman, if you like. And I guess, working in narcotics after a while, you become a bit cynical about people and you tend to believe the worst about people.
22:07 Speaker 03 Over the summer of 1978, the women were being pressured by Toddy's nephew Vern to keep driving around country Victoria and New South Wales. This was because Vern was planning to try and unload the stash in the van. Each time the women tried to end their holiday to return home to the US, Vern would up the ante by threatening them. And when the women asked Vern what was going on and why they needed to keep aimlessly driving, he told the women they didn't need to know anything more. Unwittingly, Toddy and Beezy now found themselves in something so deep, there was simply no way out. At one stage, Beezy got alarmed after finding a small electronic device hanging from underneath the camper van.
22:52 Speaker 10 I didn't know what it was at first, it was just on the leaf springs there and I took it off and took it in the van and... Well, it was loose, yeah. Then clipped it and took it inside and took it apart with a screwdriver, then I knew it was a beeper, then I knew something was wrong.
23:06 Speaker 03 What Beezy had discovered was the narc agent's tracking device, which had worked itself free.
23:20 Speaker 03 By January 1978, the women had become desperate. They wanted no more of the van and whatever seemed to be hidden inside it. So they pleaded with the US consulate for help. They were told, "Put the camper van in storage and head back home." But the anxiety and fear had become too much for Toddy, who ended up in St Luke's Hospital, Sydney, with high blood pressure. With flights back to the US already booked, and not knowing how long Toddy would need to stay in hospital, Beazey made the difficult decision to fly home on her own. At Sydney Airport, checking in for a flight, Beazey bumped into two men in suits, who were keen to have a word with her down at the police station.
24:04 Speaker 03 The Narcotics Bureau weren't wasting their time.
24:08 Speaker 08 Inspector Bob Drain and myself went to the hospital.
24:12 Speaker 03 Meanwhile, Agents Bob Drain and Mish Currie headed to the hospital to bump into Toddy. Here, Mish uses Toddy's first name, Vera.
24:22 Speaker 08 We knew that Vera was going to be checking out. She looked at it, both Bob and I stunned, and sort of said, "What are you doing here?", something like that. And Bob said, "Look, we've got a few questions to ask you. My name's Robert Drain. I'm with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and this is Mish. Mish Currie, she's a federal narcotics agent and we would like to talk to you." And her face absolutely dropped. And her first inquiry was, "Where's Beazey?"
25:02 Speaker 02 I said, "Where's Beazey?" She said, "She's in Silverwater." I said, "What's Silverwater?" She said, "Well, that's a prison for women." I said, "What the hell for?" She said, "I can't tell you now." "Get your things, get in the car and we'll go down to the court building or whatever building our narcotic agents are in." I had no idea, not a bit.
25:23 Speaker 07 It was, I would say, the most difficult arrest that I've ever made. She was quite shocked to find out who I was. I must admit, whilst I was anxious to do my job, I still felt rather low at the time about the arrest.
25:48 Speaker 01 The information we've received is a little sketchy, but this is what we can tell you.
25:52 Speaker 03 This is how the world learned about the arrest of Toddy and Beezy, soon to be dubbed the Drug Grannies. ABC TV's current affairs programme, this day tonight.
26:02 Speaker 01 The customs department has made the biggest ever haul of hashish in Australian history. Now, we understand that 1.9 tonnes, and that's an awful lot of hash, has been found in a camper van, a Mercedes-Benz camper van, which is at present in the possession of the customs department at their marine centre in...
26:27 Speaker 00 Part one of The Drug Grannies: Too Old to Run was written and narrated by Sandy Logan. The sound engineer was Matthew Crawford, and the editor was Michelle Rayner. Next time, in part two, the hellish nightmare unfolds for Toddy and Beezy in Australia after the discovery of drugs in their camper van.
26:49 Speaker 08 I showed her a sample of the goods that we found under the floor of the camper van.
26:57 Speaker 02 What in the world? You're thinking about your loved ones at home. Everything is going through your mind. What is going on? And you don't know what's going on. You've never been in drugs, you've never been affiliated with drugs in any of your life. You don't even know what the stuff is. Now all of a sudden, this is what you're in for.
27:11 Speaker 08 I sentence you to imprisonment for 14 years. Very, very unfair. I couldn't, I couldn't understand it.
27:19 Speaker 10 I hated my nephew like I never hated anybody in my life. Rape amongst women, bashings, hair pulling, shaving of heads. They were like grandmothers. Actually, some of the girls used to call them grand.
27:31 Speaker 11 Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon has written to the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, to ask for freedom for the two American women.
27:38 Speaker 02 This has almost completely destroyed us.
27:42 Speaker 02 It hasn't. We still have our faith and we know someday it will. It has to end. Whether it's a beginning, there is an end.
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