Shepherd faces 17 drug counts

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 39

Shepherd faces 17 drug counts

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney New Zealand-born James William Shepherd, named by the Stewart Royal Commission as a “Mr Asia” drugs syndicate member, has been charged in Sydney with 17 heroin counts after being brought back to Australia at the week-end. Amid tight security from 30 heavily armed police, including members of two crack “swat” groups, who searched people going into the Waverley Court near Bondi, Shepherd made no comment as the charges were read. No plea was taken and Shepherd did not apply for bail. He was remanded in custody to August 6. He sat quietly in the court as the 17 heroin charges were read. They included conspiracy with Terrence John Clark, “Chinese Jack”

Choo Cheng Kui, Alison Dine, and others, to import, export and supply heroin between 1975 and 1981. Shepherd, who will be 44 on Thursday, was arrested in San Francisco in March last year on drink-driving charges and has been fighting his extradition to Australia ever since. He was brought back to Sydney on Sunday by the head of the Australian Joint Drugs Task Force, Detective Superintendent Jim Willis but his counsel, Mr Doug Humphries, alleged the extradition was illegal. Picton-born ‘Diamond Jim' Shepherd was named in the 1983 report of the Stewart Royal Commission as a major member of the “Mr Asia” syndicate and its paymaster while the syndicate’s boss, Clark, was on remand in Mount Eden prison in Auckland between June and October, 1978.