MAFS Australia’s Timothy speaks out about drug and prison past that made him millions

He chose to keep his dark past a secret from MAFS Australia producers


Today it’s been shockingly revealed that Timothy Smith from MAFS Australia 2024 has previously spent time in maximum-security prisons for drug offences. Now, the groom has spoken out about what happened, and how he got involved in criminal activity before the show.

Timothy was sentenced in 2006 for drug trafficking commercial amounts of drugs in the US. It’s been revealed he was living in Vancouver at the time, and would fly large amounts of marijuana across the country in a helicopter. Following being caught by police in the US, Timothy spent time in super-maximum prisons in Washington State, California, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Speaking to Channel Nine’s A Current Affair, Timothy revealed his criminal past began when he was approached in a nightclub by a group of people who were looking for a helicopter pilot. He took a flying lesson and was identified as a “natural” before then embarking on more than 20 drug-smuggling flights, transporting marijuana from Canada to the US, using small, unmanned airports to depart from.

In the end, Timothy was a million-dollar drug smuggler. He’s said he was paid up to $100k per short trip, where the drugs were loaded up into his helicopter, before he would fly them on.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry to everyone I hurt,” Timothy said. “But I don’t want anyone to do what I did. That decision in 2006 keeps affecting me. Unfortunately or fortunately it shapes who I am today. Someone threw some money at me and said, ‘Go and take a lesson tomorrow’. I did and the instructor said I was a natural. That was the beginning of the end.”

Explaining how the deals worked, Timothy added: “I’d meet a 4WD and land behind it and within a minute the helicopter would be loaded with marijuana and I’d fly south into the US,” he admitted. “It was $100k a trip for a couple of hours of work.

“I would take off from a little unmanned airport. I had the helicopter sorted and I’d fly up a valley and into a creek.”

Timothy had been returning to the US to visit his unwell mother when he was intercepted by the police in Los Angeles. Agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement were waiting for him in the terminal. Following his arrest, he plead guilty and spent one year in prison.

On MAFS Australia, Timothy has opened up about how his mother and brother died within months of each other. The tragic family loses Timothy has spoken about happened whilst he was in prison.

“My world changed,” Timothy said. “I was shipped off to a federal facility. No guards, four walls, 180 guys, good or bad. If I could go back and change it, I would. There’s no question I’d change it. I wasn’t there when my mother and brother died. I did something very stupid and I paid the price. I paid the ultimate price.”

The Tab has reached out to Channel 9 for further comment. For all the latest MAFS Australia 2024 news and gossip, like The Holy Church of MAFS on Facebook.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Wait, Timothy was secretly married for SEVEN years before MAFS Australia 2024?!

• Just a list of 17 awful things we’ve learnt about Jack during MAFS Australia 2024

Ben calls Ellie ‘a cold-hearted woman’ who was ‘made to look like a hero’ on MAFS Australia

More on: MAFS