SHAUN Collopy was flying — barely 30, popular and a self-made millionaire. 

Yet he will spend his 40th birthday next month in prison awaiting sentence on major drug-trafficking charges. 

The former Adelaide computer science student had struck gold in the early 2000s, through a series of start-up companies specialising in SMS text-messaging services, rubbing shoulders with the elite of New York and Las Vegas. 

A self-described “serial entrepreneur”, Collopy’s success culminated in 2007, when he sold a majority stake in his Mobile Messenger company to a US private equity firm for “a valuation in excess of $200 million”, according to his biography for another company he helped direct, MGM Wireless. 

Court documents obtained by the Sunday Mail following his conviction in the District Court show he pocketed $6 million from that deal and another $3 million windfall from the sale of another business. 

They paint a picture of a man who had it all — a vast bank balance, a wife and young son and a canny business acumen — yet he faces the grim prospect of spending years behind bars after being busted running an internet drug network on the mysterious so-called “darknet”. 

media_camera The original Wolf of Wall St, Jordan Belfort, speaks at a real estate agents’ conference at the Gold Coast. 

media_camera Shaun Collopy faces a prison term for a drug-dealing racket. 

His resume could only be considered by the toughest marker as sparkling — and he was proud of it. 

“As co-founder of Mobile Messenger, we knocked it out of the ballpark, bootstrapping from conception to $200m+ annual revenue, 200+ staff, and sold a majority stake to SilverLake in 2007,” an online biography of himself states. 

“I am a seasoned entrepreneur.  In some cases I am just interested in investing, but for some opportunities I am willing to provide additional support, potential advisory roles and networking.” 

In August 2009, Collopy sent several tweets to convicted conman banker Jordan Belfort — immortalised when played by Leonardo di Caprio in the film The Wolf of Wall Street. 

Collopy told Belfort he loved his books and “would love to see you in Vegas or LA.  I am Australian living in Las Vegas, and would love to meet the main (sic) himself :)’’

media_camera Leonardo DiCaprio, right, and Jonah Hill in a scene from film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. 

He would later codename himself “The Big Wolf” during his ill-fated excursion into darknet drug-dealing. 

While living the high life in Las Vegas, Collopy developed a lust for cocaine, and when he found himself wealthy beyond expectations, paying for it was no problem. 

During sentencing submissions in the District Court, Collopy’s lawyer, Lindy Powell QC, said the lucrative sale of Mobile Messenger had left the young businessman with a “career hangover”. 

“He was no longer working the extraordinary hours that he had been earlier and, of course, he was in a financial position to spend much more money on drugs than he had been at earlier times in his life,” Ms Powell said. 

Collopy also became hooked on opiate painkillers and, in 2009, he overdosed on cocaine, leading to a nine-month stint in rehab. 

In 2010, Collopy invested more than $2 million in a failed business venture. 

media_camera One of Shaun Collopy’s tweets Jordan Belfort. 

media_camera One of Shaun Collopy’s tweets Jordan Belfort. 

“From the time of that failure, his drug use escalated again … coinciding with that, his marriage … was starting to disintegrate quite rapidly,” Ms Powell told Chief Judge Geoffrey Muecke. 

The next year, Collopy moved back to Adelaide with his wife and young son hoping for a fresh start. 

But the lure of drugs soon overtook good intentions.  Collopy met up with an old mate, Gary Cooley, and the pair immersed themselves in using ice, which Collopy bought in large amounts off the infamous Silk Road website. 

By August 2012, his ice addiction was out of control and his wife left him, plunging Collopy deeper into the mire of the drug world. 

By March 2013, he was logging in to buy up to $6000 worth of drugs a week to support his and Cooley’s habits, and to provide goods to other friends. 

“He began sourcing very large amounts of drugs for his own personal use through that darknet site and acquired a lot of drugs through that.  On the site between April 26, 2013, and October 1, 2013, he spent $56,656,” Ms Powell said. 

In September 2013, Collopy suffered a severe drug overdose and was taken to Flinders Medical Centre — but it was no wake-up call. 

In fact, he put the finishing touches on his and Cooley’s own online drug website, “AUVIP”, just a few weeks later. 

media_camera The notorious Silk Road website. 

His lawyers would claim Collopy’s venture was no more than a “copycat” rip-off of Silk Road, only set up to stop him going broke to support his and Cooley’s drug binges. 

Prosecutor Peter Longson poured scorn on the notion that Collopy was running out of cash. 

“He had all the tea in China, as we have heard.  He could buy all the ecstasy he needed to take,” Mr Longson said. 

“This was a money-making venture.  This was for profit and it was for no other reason.” 

Cooley, 42, gave evidence that Collopy paid him $1000 a week and free drugs to pick up and deliver parcels of drugs concealed in gift cards, and that his entrepreneur friend was the brains of the operation. 

The pair set up Facebook accounts in fake names and bragged to each other about the sales they made, including one reference to what prosecutors say was a $108,000 transaction among numerous deals sourcing “product” from India, Belgium and The Netherlands. 

But when a sniffer dog in Sydney nuzzled up to a package sent to a Lonsdale address, they soon linked Cooley with the importation and raided his home during a children’s birthday party. 

Prosecutors say it was only the presence of Cooley’s wife — who remarked that Collopy was probably involved — that the millionaire came into the frame. 

But, according to prosecutors, it was only the tenacity of a police forensic expert who, after four months of trying, finally cracked the password to Collopy’s numerous encrypted computers and the scale of his scheme was laid bare. 

Wolf of Wall Street pockets a packet A cashed up criminal turned good guy?  Critics are asking should the 'Wolf of Wall Street' pay back some of the million dollars he was paid for the movie rights to his book. 

“This is, in many respects, new-age drug-dealing … these two men are at the top of this tree,” Mr Longson said. 

“This is not the normal drug-dealing where you have got people standing on the street corner or you have got people meeting in car washes. 

“This is sophisticated because of its undetectability, by being transacted on the darknet and transacted in bitcoins.” 

Mr Longson said the use of bitcoins — a form of digital currency which fluctuated in value but were at the time around $480 each — made it impossible for police to know how much Collopy and Cooley were generating. 

“This isn’t a case where the police can go to your house and find the 200 grand hidden under your bed,” Mr Longson said. 

“The bitcoins live in wallets that live on devices and they can only be opened if you have the private key.  The private key lives on the device. 

“So there’s profit there but it’s not profit in the normal way inasmuch as it is tangible and you can point to it.  There is nobody at this bar table — Mr Collopy might be able to do it — that can say how much money was made and how much wasn’t.” 

Mr Longson urged Chief Judge Muecke to impose a lengthy prison term to deter others from using the darknet for criminal gain. 

“This could be going on all day.  There could be thousands of people in Adelaide doing this and there is no way for the police to find out who is doing what,” he said. 

“If you want to risk running your drug-dealing on the darknet and you get caught, you need to know that there will be serious consequences. 

Mr Longson rejected Collopy’s pleas that his operation was borne of desperation, noting that Collopy and Cooley were setting up a serviced office in the Westpac building, in King William St, upon their arrest in November 2013. 

media_camera Shaun Collopy’s downfall also has echoes of hit TV show Breaking Bad, in which law-abiding chemistry teacher Walter White becomes a feared drug lord. 

However, Ms Powell urged the judge to show mercy to Collopy, who had the support of his family and friends in court. 

“Mr Collopy is an extremely talented, intelligent man and there is one feature of this aberrant conduct of his … because nothing in his life, apart from this very severe lapse, indicates anything but a hardworking, intelligent and responsible man,” Ms Powell said. 

“Drug addiction is what led him into this offending, It was what led him into the type of offending and once the drug addiction is taken away or he has overcome the drug addiction … he will resume the hardworking, successful life that he enjoyed up until the time that he became so severely addicted to drugs.” 

Ms Powell said Collopy was extremely remorseful for the shame he had brought upon himself and his family. 

“The tragedy of these events is that this is a very intelligent man who became addicted in a terrible way to these drugs, which he then of course onsold to support that habit,” Ms Powell said. 

“It is often the tragedy … the success or otherwise of young men in Adelaide who, through their own ingenuity, become very wealthy as young men and unfortunately don’t have the maturity to deal with that sudden influx of enormous wealth.” 

“These are crimes which Your Honour can treat as fuelled not by greed, but were fuelled by addiction,” Ms Powell said. 

“He’s lost his career, he’s lost his family, he’s lost his pride, he’s lost his money and he’s lost the respect of his loved ones and of course, most of all, he’s lost his freedom.” 

Collopy and Cooley remain in custody awaiting sentence next month in the District Court.