Mongol boss Marius Sabau jailed in maximum security prison after running sophisticated drug syndicate

A one-time head of the Mongols bikie gang in WA faces a slab of jail time after being found guilty of overseeing a sophisticated drugs syndicate which used Airbnb properties to warehouse meth and cocaine. Marius Sabau will on Tuesday be sentenced for his role in the 2020 trafficking operation, which unravelled when detectives placed a tracking device on a car that had been fitted with a secret hydraulic smuggling compartment. Sabau’s sentencing is another blow for the Mongols club, which is reeling from last week’s guilty verdict in the trial of member David Pye. Pye faces a long stint behind bars for masterminding the successful assassination of one-time Rebels kingpin Nick Martin and commissioning two other underworld hits. Sabau will soon follow Pye into maximum security Casuarina prison when he is sentenced for three drugs charges, the most serious of which is possessing a trafficable quantity of methylamphetamine with intent to sell or supply. The 48-year-old has already clocked a three-month sentence courtesy of his refusal to be sworn in or answer any questions when he took the stand as a witness. He was arrested six years ago, along with young gang member Dre Frazier Collard-Williams and 36-year-old club associate Cathy Patricia McFarland, after police raided their Balga stash house and found 3kg of cocaine and 1kg of meth. While the type of drugs didn’t surprise police, the way the trio moved the dope around Perth did. Officers bugged McFarland’s Toyota Rav4 in May 2020 and conversations picked up by the listening device convinced police they were onto serious players. A tracking device on the Toyota showed the car was going to a web of eight homes the syndicate had booked through Airbnb. A property on Rochester Circle, Balga, had been rented from an unsuspecting Perth grandfather on June 28, 2020. Police surveillance logs show McFarland visited it the next day and again on June 30, when she Collard-Williams hid drugs in the roof space, unaware the house was riddled with microphones and cameras installed by detectives. Police retrieved the drugs then watched and listened as McFarland and Collard-Williams came back the next day to find their $2 million stash had disappeared. “There’s nothing in here, f....,” McFarland was heard saying, before warning her accomplice that “we need to get out of here”. The pair and Sabau were arrested and when police inspected McFarland’s Rav4 they found it had been retrofitted with a secret smuggling compartment that was hydraulically activated, a cipher phone, a cryovac machine and two large shopping bags containing more than $90,000 cash. Subsequent raids on the other properties yielded more drugs and cash. In November 2022, Collard-Williams was sentenced to 12 years after prosecutor Brett Tooker argued the bikie was clearly experienced. “One doesn’t perform this kind of role for an outlaw motorcycle gang without being a trusted member,” Mr Tooker said McFarland copped 13 years in September 2023.