A man caught riding a stolen e-scooter has been jailed over an ice business that saw $219,000 in unexplained deposits land in his bank account in five months.
Shaun Keverall Kaye, 46, was jailed for three and a half years in the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Thursday after pleading guilty to trafficking methylamphetamine.
The court heard police used a geo-locator to identify the stolen e-scooter and stopped Kaye in Kings Meadows, Launceston, on August 21, 2024, after he tried to flee.
Officers found 58.6 grams of ice worth up to $56,000, along with other drugs, $5,450 in $50 notes, three knives and ammunition. A search of his car turned up a silencer.
Kaye accepted the cash was proceeds of drug sales.
“You are not charged with firearm offences, but firearms are the tools of a drug trafficker,” Justice Robert Pearce said.
Pearce said phone messages and bank records revealed the true scale of Kaye’s trade.
In December 2023, Kaye told his son he had access to “a couple of kilos” of an unidentified drug and 1,000 MDMA pills, but was struggling to get them into Tasmania.
By July 2024, the pair had pooled about $30,000 to buy ice. Days later, Kaye wanted to buy a kilogram for $130,000.
Pearce said it could not be determined whether those planned purchases went ahead. But he said the proven sales and bank records showed “a moderately large business”.
The court heard Kaye was owed more than $60,000 in drug debts and had at least two people selling for him.
Kaye was removed from his parents as a child and was sexually abused more than once.
“Compensation funds obtained through the redress scheme only served to increase your drug use,” Pearce said.
He found Kaye’s main motive was profit, not funding his addiction. He said the guilty plea saved a long trial, but did not show genuine remorse.
“Whilst your original trafficking may have been driven by your own drug use, the primary motivation must have been profit because the nature and scale of the trafficking extended far beyond that necessary to fund your addiction,” the judge said.
Kaye, who has a 2014 trafficking conviction, must serve half his sentence before he is eligible for parole. The sentence was backdated to October 12.
