1
00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: This is gem Nation with gen Z.

2
00:00:04,519 --> 00:00:09,320
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy seven, two American women, Vera and Floris,

3
00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:11,399
Speaker 2: thought that they were about to embark on the trip

4
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:14,440
Speaker 2: of a lifetime when Vera's nephew vern offered them a

5
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,959
Speaker 2: camp a van. They're going to drive from Germany to

6
00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:19,919
Speaker 2: India make their way to Australia. Little did the women

7
00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:23,520
Speaker 2: know that vernon his accomplices would secretly pack two tons

8
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:27,000
Speaker 2: of hashish into the vehicle. They became known as the

9
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:31,200
Speaker 2: drug Grannies. Just the title drug Grannies gives me such

10
00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,400
Speaker 2: a flashback. The press could not get enough. I've been

11
00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:37,040
Speaker 2: fascinated with this story. I'm not the only one. Journalist

12
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:40,080
Speaker 2: Sandy Logan has spent only two decades of his life

13
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:43,159
Speaker 2: covering this incredible story. He's got a new book about it,

14
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:45,160
Speaker 2: and he joins us now Sandy, Hello.

15
00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:47,480
Speaker 1: Hey, Amanda.

16
00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:50,559
Speaker 3: It seems extraordinary. Though two tons is a lot of

17
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:52,640
Speaker 3: hashish packed into a camper.

18
00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:54,960
Speaker 1: Van, it is John j and I think most of

19
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,440
Speaker 1: the listeners would agree that you could also not say

20
00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:00,920
Speaker 1: that it was for personal use. The point of the

21
00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:04,479
Speaker 1: matter is that the nephew was such an expert at

22
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: not only deception, at not only duping and not only betrayal,

23
00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:11,440
Speaker 1: but he also used the roots of removing the vehicle

24
00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:13,800
Speaker 1: from them for a couple of days, ostensibly to do

25
00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:18,920
Speaker 1: some documentary shooting in the region of Peshawa and Afghanistan,

26
00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:21,400
Speaker 1: between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it was at that point

27
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,880
Speaker 1: except the two times were secreted throughout the entire floor

28
00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:28,479
Speaker 1: length of the van, so to cover that extra weight.

29
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:31,800
Speaker 2: I had no idea they'd been duped, I must say.

30
00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:35,880
Speaker 2: I just remember the headlines of drug grannies, and I

31
00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:39,639
Speaker 2: until I heard you talking about this and saw the book,

32
00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:42,039
Speaker 2: I actually thought that they were guilty.

33
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,280
Speaker 1: Well, Amanda, you're not wrong in the sense that the

34
00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:48,680
Speaker 1: advice they got from their lawyer, from their legal aid

35
00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:51,720
Speaker 1: lawyer when they were arrested, the advice they got was

36
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:54,680
Speaker 1: to plead guilty, and so they did plead guilty. But

37
00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:58,480
Speaker 1: it was full of so many conditions and explanations and

38
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,840
Speaker 1: circumstances around why they pleaded guilty. But the tragedy is

39
00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:06,480
Speaker 1: they were as innocent as ever when they set out

40
00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:07,200
Speaker 1: on this trip.

41
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:11,200
Speaker 3: Gee, how terrible is that? Because they weren't actually grandparents,

42
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 3: but they were going No.

43
00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:16,520
Speaker 1: Again, maybe you're right, they weren't. They didn't do drugs,

44
00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:19,280
Speaker 1: and they weren't grannies. They had they had lived together

45
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,120
Speaker 1: since the early nineteen fifties. They'd met on the assembly

46
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:27,720
Speaker 1: line of McDonald douglas manufacturing riveting like Rosie the Riveting,

47
00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:31,639
Speaker 1: you know, riveting planes together and they were now retired

48
00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:35,120
Speaker 1: and living up in the Pine, Oregon, a small lumberjack

49
00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:37,360
Speaker 1: community of a couple of thousand residents. They were loving

50
00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:40,399
Speaker 1: their outdoor lifestyle and they had their own motor home

51
00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:43,880
Speaker 1: in the United States. So the nephew realized that they

52
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,960
Speaker 1: were prime picking and this was his his this was

53
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,920
Speaker 1: his modus operandi and why eventually the campra Van was targeted.

54
00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:54,520
Speaker 1: He had seven different vehicles at the same time as

55
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:58,440
Speaker 1: the Grannies coming into Australia in different ports, different types

56
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:01,520
Speaker 1: of vehicles, and the twenty six foot long, the eight

57
00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:03,480
Speaker 1: meter long campra Van was a bit like the mother

58
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:06,919
Speaker 1: loads for the then typical bureau narcotics. They couldn't believe

59
00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:10,280
Speaker 1: the size of the vehicle he was now using to bring

60
00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:14,279
Speaker 1: his hash in with and of course, had it been successful,

61
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:17,440
Speaker 1: this would have been potentially a nineteen million dollar windfall

62
00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,919
Speaker 1: for him, which in nineteen seventy eight for a lot.

63
00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,360
Speaker 2: Of millions, and what a way to I mean, they

64
00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:25,720
Speaker 2: would have looked innocent because they had no idea that

65
00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:28,600
Speaker 2: the nephew has never been convicted. But the two women

66
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:29,640
Speaker 2: ended up in prison.

67
00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,040
Speaker 1: They did, and they had not only the book thrown

68
00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 1: at the Bamanda, they had the entire encyclopedia. They got

69
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:40,320
Speaker 1: a fourteen year sentence with no parole, no minimum period

70
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,000
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the sentence, and that's quite unusual.

71
00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:45,960
Speaker 1: It's a kin to a life sentence. So the only

72
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,840
Speaker 1: way other than serving the fourteen years in jail, and

73
00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:50,880
Speaker 1: at their age when they were jailed, they were in

74
00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:54,400
Speaker 1: the sixties, it was unlikely. I think Vera Hayes via

75
00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 1: Toad Hayes or Paddy issue is known, unlikely she would

76
00:03:57,240 --> 00:03:59,480
Speaker 1: last fourteen years. The only other ways to get out

77
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:03,360
Speaker 1: would be to either pass away inside or to escape

78
00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: that wasn't going to happen, or as I then got

79
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:10,240
Speaker 1: involved back then, trying to get an early release on license,

80
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 1: partitioning the government, petitioning the Attorney General, seeking compassion, seeking

81
00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:17,960
Speaker 1: and understanding that there's been an injustice here. Yes, they

82
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:20,840
Speaker 1: did plead guilty, but there's an injustice keeping them in

83
00:04:20,920 --> 00:04:21,640
Speaker 1: jail this long.

84
00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:24,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and are they still alive now?

85
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 1: No, they one of them, Toddy passed about three years

86
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 1: after her release. So we were successful. In nineteen eighty

87
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 1: three with change of government. Senator Gareth Evans was the

88
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,160
Speaker 1: then Attorney General. Bob Hawk, of course, was the Prime Minister,

89
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,440
Speaker 1: and within about ten days of the cabin the ministry

90
00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:43,680
Speaker 1: being sworn in, Senator Evan, Attorney General, released them and

91
00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:48,440
Speaker 1: unfortunately Toddy only lived about three years after on return

92
00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:50,640
Speaker 1: to the United States. Easy. On the other hand, she

93
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 1: lived since he was eighty two years old, and you

94
00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,039
Speaker 1: had a good right. But she did tell me near

95
00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:57,480
Speaker 1: the end when I we used to visit, you know,

96
00:04:57,839 --> 00:04:59,880
Speaker 1: we certainly kept in touch with them, And when my

97
00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:02,320
Speaker 1: last saw them, Bus did say to me, you know,

98
00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,720
Speaker 1: quite genuinely, Oh I do miss Toddy. And it was

99
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:08,360
Speaker 1: a terrible way that they had to spend five years

100
00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:11,320
Speaker 1: in a jail on the nephew's behalf. And if you

101
00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:13,480
Speaker 1: say the nephew was never caught, he did the vault

102
00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:17,560
Speaker 1: and they eventually returned to Los Angeles' birthplace and ran

103
00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:19,680
Speaker 1: a very successful business there under an alias.

104
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 3: How does he sleep at night?

105
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:23,200
Speaker 1: Oh? How exactly?

106
00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:25,000
Speaker 3: God, Now, I'm not going to trust any of my

107
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:26,080
Speaker 3: nephews or nieces.

108
00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:28,480
Speaker 2: No, if they give you a motorbike, Jonesy, don't look

109
00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 2: in the saddlebags.

110
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:33,719
Speaker 3: Well, Sandy, it's a great story trade. The incredible, untold

111
00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:36,880
Speaker 3: inside story of the two most unlikely drug running grannies

112
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:40,159
Speaker 3: in Australian history is in all good bookstores now, Sandy

113
00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:40,520
Speaker 3: Logan

114
00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:42,960
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks Chonsey, Thanks Amanda,