2 hours ago
1
Former Melbourne stockbroker Timothy Clark could have been a character from the Wolf of Wall Street until his small plane plunged into a remote sugarcane field near the northern coastline of Brazil last week.
About 180 kilograms of cocaine was found in the crumpled wreckage of the single-engine Sling 4, which had been fitted with additional fuel tanks, but had no active flight plan and its transponder switched off.
Timothy Clark with Mick Gatto (top left) and Rick Olarenshaw (bottom left) and the scene of the crash in Brazil (right).Credit:
Clark, 46, was the sole occupant of the plane. He died at the scene.
Before his ill-fated mission in South America, Clark had a network of colourful connections to members of Melbourne underworld figures, controversial corporate figures and, somewhat ironically, Wolf of Wall Street author Jordan Belfort.
Some of Clark’s former colleagues and clients from the finance industry were not surprised by his apparent career pivot from stockbroker to transnational drug smuggler.
One associate, who had known Clark for 15 years but could not be named, said the failed mission in South America was not his “first rodeo”, and alleged Clark had been involved in the importation of 200 kilograms of cocaine to a remote airstrip in Western Australia last December.
Timothy Clark.
A Melbourne man and a German national were charged by the Australian Federal Police in January, but this masthead is unable to discuss Clark’s role in the alleged trafficking syndicate for legal reasons.
Clark had also been a regular cocaine user during his employment as a private client advisor at Shaw and Partners, Patersons Securities and Findlay Securities, according to several former colleagues.
Former friend and client Andrew Wray recalls how the illicit powder became a staple at many social gatherings hosted by Clark.
“I know he liked cocaine. I went to his parties, it was all stockbrokers, and I’m talking about the early 2000s, even the 1990s, and he would have parties at his apartment in the Docklands and there would always be a big pile of cocaine in the middle of the table,” Wray said.
Timothy Clark (centre) with Mick Gatto (left) and Danny Green.
He said his late friend had always been an avid traveller and “daredevil”, who once backpacked around Afghanistan when it was under the control of the Taliban.
He said Clark was constantly pushing speculative mining, energy and technology companies to clients, who were promised exponential returns, but rarely warned of the significants risks.
“I ended up losing a lot of money... I got screwed with start-up mining companies and probably did $200,000 I reckon. Tim even owed me $30,000. He invited me to go and see him in South Africa, and he said he’d look after me,” Wray said.
Wray says Clark introduced him to Mick Gatto and the pair attended several boxing events promoted by the prominent underworld figure. Clark posted several images of himself with Gatto, champion boxer Danny Green and industrial mediator John Khoury in 2012.
Gatto and Khoury did not respond to requests for comment. This masthead does not suggest Gatto, Khoury or Green had any involvement with illegal drugs or relied on Clark for financial advice.
However, Wray says his late friend did provide stockmarket tips to several other underworld figures.
“He was a stockbroker for the underworld and shit went bad ... and I don’t think Tim wanted to come back to Australia, but he never said why,” Wray told this masthead.
“I really liked Tim, but I suspected he was into something dodgy.”
During his tenure at Findlay Securities from 2008 until 2010, Clark came into contact with another Melbourne underworld associate Tom Karas, who was accused by the Purana anti-gangland taskforce of laundering criminal proceeds on behalf of the Mokbel drug empire.
Timothy Clark in the La Trobe Street offices of State Securities, run by Tom Karas.
Karas was a former director of a company called State Securities, which was based in the same La Trobe Street offices as Findlay Securities.
Karas did not respond to requests for comment, other than to deny that he had ever employed Clark.
Karas owes almost $67 million to the Tax Office, according to a creditors report by Pitcher Partners from May 2020, after battling with authorities for more than a decade over the source of his wealth.
In 2011, the ATO won a Supreme Court judgement against Karas that ordered him to pay $21 million in taxes on unexplained income and assets, some of which were allegedly derived from business dealings with the Mokbel drug empire.
Timothy Clark and Rick Olarenshaw at Serangan Beach.
A former private client advisor recalls Clark arranging a meeting with two prominent underworld figures at 101 Collins Street in about 2012. The former advisor, who asked not to be identified because of Clark’s alleged involvement with drug trafficking, said they discussed the sale of a Victorian-based gold mine.
“I still remember the cheap aftershave when I walked into this meeting room... The whole thing felt off, and I didn’t want anything to do with the deal,” the former stockbroker said.
He also recalls Clark’s heavy cocaine use at the time.
“It was widely known, and he would often meet with other brokers for lunchtime sessions at his apartment,” he said.
Timothy Clark (right) with Jordan Belfort.
In an apparent case of life imitating art, Clark also met disgraced US broker Jordan Belfort, who famously wrote his best-selling memoir The Wolf of Wall Street while serving a 22-month prison sentence after he was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering in 1998.
The pair met after the Emirates Stakes in 2012, while Belfort was in Melbourne for a speaking tour, and spent the evening drinking French champagne at former CBD restaurant Comme.
Timothy Clark (centre) with Ni Ketut Sri Astari Sarnanitha and Rick Olarenshaw.
Clark appears to have remained in contact with Belfort and posted an image of them together in Dubai in 2022.
Over the past decade, Clark lived in a gated community north of Johannesburg in South Africa, but spent significant time in Thailand, Bali, South America and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, he told friends back in Melbourne that he managed a gold mining company, which owned leases in Zambia and other central African nations.
In 2017, he spent time in Bali with former Essendon Footballer Rick Olarenshaw and his now-estranged wife Ni Ketut Sri Astari Sarnanitha.
Photographs posted to social media reveal Clark surfing with Olarenshaw and relaxing on a boat with other ex-pats living on the Indonesian island.
Last year, Olarenshaw abruptly returned to Australia, while his former wife spent seven months in the notorious Kerobokan prison after being found guilty of breaching Indonesia’s pornography laws by operating a brothel.
In another Facebook post, Clark appears next to former Fremantle man Travis Mcleod, who was sentenced to a year in a Balinese prison, after a small quantity of methamphetamine was found in his villa in December 2020.
A former stockbroking colleague who worked with Clark at Patersons Securities in 2008 said he was always drawn to flashy people and easy money, despite attending the now-defunct Lilydale Adventist Academy run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
“He was a good bloke. But Tim was always getting in with the wrong people ... I’ve got no idea what happened in South America, but it looks like he’s done another deal with the wrong person.”
Most Viewed in National
Loading
