When Reg Spiers desperately needed to get a flight from London to Perth, his daring plan would go on to shock the nation. But little did we know it was only a precursor to a career of criminal smuggling.
After spending the summer of 1963/4 in England attempting to qualify for the Australian Olympic Team in javelin throw, Spiers had run out of money and time. Failing to make the team, and with his daughter’s birthday fast approaching, Spiers would stop at nothing to make it back home.
“I’ve come up with this mad scheme to get back to Australia in a box,” he told the BBC in 2015. “Who can say it won’t work? Let’s give it a shot.”
Spiers had taken an airport job in the export cargo section when he came up with the plan. Enlisting the help of fellow javelin pro, John McSorley, he commissioned a 5ft x 3ft x 2.5ft wooden crate that would be transported to Australia by air freight – with Spiers hidden inside.
Spiers, who is over two metres tall, successfully made the 63-hour trip home without detection. Although his wife could scarcely believe his story, there was one person Spiers had forgotten to tell.
Worried for his friend, McSorley alerted the media and started a frenzy that followed Spiers into his old age.
Reg Spiers’ new career
After retiring from athletics, Reg Spiers found a more lucrative smuggling trade. He made headlines again in 1980 when he was arrested in Adelaide for conspiracy to import $1.2 million of cocaine and cannabis resin (hashish) into the country.
But Spiers and his girlfriend disappeared from Adelaide in 1981.
But the trouble didn’t stop there. Escaping another drug smuggling charge in India, Spiers resurfaced in Sri Lanka in 1984, where he was caught with 41 packets of drugs in his luggage.
Spiers appeared in Sri Lankan court in 1987, where he was sentenced to death for drug possession. An appeal earned him a reprieve, but he was ordered to serve a five-year prison term in Adelaide.
Find out more about Reg Spiers’ smuggling stories, including details of how he survived his international journey, listen to this episode of Criminal.
Subscribe to Crime Insiders, taking you beyond true crime. In groundbreaking interviews, explore the world of policing and forensics through stories from the world’s most experienced and decorated experts.