Penthouse Pet Simone Farrow seized in drug raid on Gold Coast

DETAINED: Fugitive Simone Farrow arrives at Sydney's domestic airport in police custody. Source: The Sunday Telegraph

PENTHOUSE Pet and alleged boss of a global drugs ring Simone Farrow was nabbed by police after a dramatic raid on the Gold Coast. 
 
On the run for almost a month, the blonde swimsuit model was extradited to Sydney on Wednesday night after her arrest at a cheap hotel on the Gold Coast Highway. She is wanted for fleeing $150,000 bail.

Accused of trafficking "ice" in bags of bath salts from a plush Hollywood high-rise, an emotional Farrow broke down and pleaded her innocence on arrival at Sydney airport.

 

Flanked by two federal police officers, Farrow, 37, who has at least 19 aliases and a long-lost teenage daughter, claimed she went into hiding in fear for her life.

The accused drug trafficker said: "The only reason I've done this is because someone was trying to murder me."

She told The Sunday Mail: "I've been in ... relationships with numerous underworld figures, or whatever you want to call them, and I feel that maybe they feel threatened by my situation.

 

"I wasn't trying to flee the country at all; I was trying to protect myself from being killed or harmed."

Farrow, dressed in a white tracksuit, was in tears for most of the flight back to Sydney and hung her head and kept her eyes closed as she was led off the plane at 7pm.

"It's either a person or an organisation," she said. "I will bring (details) to light during the next couple of weeks."

Asked why she left NSW, Farrow said: "I had nowhere else to go - I tried to go from friend's house to friend's house to try and save my life.

 

"Basically I just did what anyone would do - try to protect my life."

Farrow has now been remanded in custody on the alleged 2009 drug charges, much to the relief of a Sydney barrister and a flamboyant doctor who had pledged her $150,000 bail sureties.

Court documents tendered at one of Farrow's bail hearings in February revealed the former Ed Hardy beach babe had legally changed her surname to Lawson in November.

Police suspected this was a ruse to allow her to flee the country.

Farrow is charged with importing "ice" into Australia and police allege she was the brains behind an "ongoing criminal enterprise that involved at least seven people".

Court documents tendered at the bail hearing said Farrow allegedly asked about having bikies pursue a Victorian man over a five-figure drug debt.

 

The documents said the alleged enterprise was run from Farrow's apartment, located off Sunset Blvd, Surfers Paradise.

Police claim Farrow organised for high-grade crystal methylamphetamine, which was often piled up on desks in the apartment, to be mailed to NSW and Victoria hidden in parcels containing "bath products", pants or "small fountain kits".

More than $580,000 was put into her account between February 2009 and October 2010, court documents reveal.

The AFP investigated Farrow after Customs intercepted seven Fed-Ex and United Postal Service packages that contained "ice" or chemicals used as a cutting agent for the drug.

Police allege that the packages were posted to five people in Victoria and NSW.

According to AFP documents, a further 39 "consignments" were sent to Australian recipients "under similar circumstances" but were not detected.