The 40-year mystery of a fugitive U.S. drug smuggler who faked his death has been solved — after a man was reported dead in an Australian coastal town.

In 1974, 37-year-old Raymond Grady Stansel Jr. was indicted in Florida for smuggling more than 12 tonnes of marijuana from Central America. He was arrested with a stash of $25,000 in cash, receipts for two Rolex watches, blank visas for Nicaragua and a passport that showed he had visited 12 countries in the last month, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Described as a "soldier of fortune" and a "pirate" of the times by officials, Stansel fronted up his bail with a $500,000 cashier's cheque and walked out.

As his trial was expected to begin on Jan. 5 of the following year, his attorney reported he had vanished in a scuba diving accident in Honduras. A search party looked for his body, but he was never seen again. By all official accounts, Stansel was assumed dead.

In May 2015, 78-year-old Dennis "Lee" Lafferty, a respected member of the Daintree community in Far North Queensland, Australia, took a bad turn on a local road and lost control of his car. He slid into a tree and died on impact.

Local publications mourned the loss of a "pioneer" of the region who ran the Daintree River Cruise Centre for 28 years, a man with a smooth American drawl that was known locally for his marine and boat expertise.

sad loss Posted by David White on Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Tampa Bay Times has now revealed Lafferty and Stansel are one and the same. How Stansel came to flee his criminal life to be a Daintree local has been revealed to the publication by the woman who was by his side through both lifetimes, Janet Wood.

Wood — who was Stansel's girlfriend at the time — was onboard the diving boat when Stansel went missing on the eve of 1975, and reported the incident to police. She has now revealed she instead took an across the world journey on a boat and plane with the drug smuggler, as they fled his charges in Florida, searching for a better life.

Stansel left behind a wife and four children, who depending on who you believe, have not seen him since he left in the early '70s. His ex-wife died in 2009, while two of his children are in prison on drug importation charges.

The cruise run by Lafferty in the Daintree Rainforest. Image: Facebook / Daintree River Cruise Centre

The runaway lovers disembarked from their boat in Venezuela, flew to Peru, Tahiti and New Hebrides before travelling on to Far North Queensland, Australia, Wood told the newspaper. Due to the times and the push for English-speaking immigrants, it was easy to enter Australia.

The pair married and had two children while in Queensland. They stayed generally quiet about their past life — with only a few locals knowing of the bizarre history — and kept under the radar, until Wood, since divorced from Stansel, came forward after his death.

"Our challenge was to make a living and keep a low profile," she told the Tampa Bay Times. "We had a couple of close calls ... I was afraid, but we had a good life. I'm surprised no one ever came looking for him."