After an unsuccessful attempt to import a significant quantity of ice from Spain on behalf of drug traffickers, a 52-year-old man from Glenorchy has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Mark Anthony Chatters will spend at least the next seven months in jail before becoming eligible for parole due to his involvement in the methamphetamine enterprise.
The Supreme Court of Tasmania on Thursday heard how Chatters, who suffers from schizophrenia and lived alone, was approached to receive the nearly 3kg shipment from Spain.
His intention was to keep some of the ice for personal use and divide the rest into separate bags for a third party to sell across the state.
However, the plan came undone after the Australian Federal Police replaced the drugs – hidden inside the consignment of tents and air mattresses – with an inert substance and placed a hidden listening device in the package as part of a sting operation.
The court heard how the box was delivered to the home of Chatters friend, Craig Douglas Fisher, who, according to the jury, had no knowledge that the package was supposed to contain ice and was subsequently acquitted.
Chatters collected the box from Fisher’s unit and took it home.
He was later found guilty of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, reasonably suspected of being unlawfully imported.
Justice Gregory Geason acknowledged that Chatters was not the mastermind behind the operation but played a significant role in the drug supply chain.
The ice seized had a potential street value of $4.5 million and contained roughly 30,000 individual deals.
Its purity was 80%, which is equivalent to approximately 2.35kg of pure ice.
