A FORMER Armidale student and head of a multimillion-dollar drug empire who kidnapped and murdered his syndicate’s “ice cook” will spend up to 32 years in jail.
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Brok Seckold, 31, boarded at The Armidale School in New England for a number of years as he completed his higher school studies before training as a talented chef.
But the 31-year-old had a second life, turning to crime before committing one of the worst murders Victoria has seen, according to the sentencing judge.
Seckold was found guilty by a Victorian Supreme Court jury after a four-week trial of kidnapping and murdering nightclub promoter turned methamphetamine cook Yengo Faugere in October 2011.
Mr Faugere’s remains were found in a barrel in the back of a ute at a property in St Leonards on the Bellarine Peninsula.
He had been kidnapped from his Maribyrnong home and taken to Mansfield, where he was murdered and his body dismembered.
Justice Lex Lasry described the kidnapping and murder as “callous and horrifying”.
Justice Lasry said Seckold had been obsessed with making money and committed the crimes with the aim of advancing and protecting his drug manufacturing enterprise.
Seckold had hoped to make $10 million from his drug syndicate and paid cash for a $42,000 Mercedes.
In jailing Seckold for 32 years with a non-parole period of 25 years this month, the judge said the planned execution of Mr Faugere was one of the worst murders committed in Victoria.
Seckold had recruited Mr Faugere, 23, from Cessnock in NSW, to process methamphetamine at a laboratory in Canterbury before police discovered the lab in July 2011.
The drugs boss wrongly suspected Mr Faugere had stolen the drugs and tipped off police to cover up the theft. Seckold believed the loss of the drug lab had cost him $1 million.
Seckold shot Mr Faugere, cut up his body with a chainsaw and tried to dissolve it in acid. He placed most of the remains in a portable cooler before taking a boat out into the bay and throwing the cooler overboard, but it did not sink.
Seckold and his associates drilled holes in the cooler but still it stayed afloat. In the end, Seckold tipped the remains into the bay.
Seckold later joked to an old school friend, Lloyd Jenman, about what had happened to Mr Faugere.