A Tasmanian man who hid $35,200 in drug cash behind his bathroom wall has been jailed for four years for running an ice trafficking operation from his rural property.
Barry Littlewood Wagner, 67, was sentenced in the Supreme Court after pleading guilty to trafficking methylamphetamine from his home at Dromedary, north of Hobart.
Justice Michael Brett found Wagner and his then partner Sonya Hopkinson ran the operation together between July and October 2021.
The court heard they sold ice to retail customers as well as at least one other convicted drug trafficker.
One of their wholesale clients was Kelly Rhodes, who was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for running her own trafficking operation.
Phone intercepts captured Wagner negotiating prices, discussing stock levels and arranging deliveries.
Brett said the calls made it “abundantly clear” Wagner was a full and willing participant in the operation.
At least seven sales to Rhodes and one of her associates were captured on the intercepts, worth a combined $18,800.
A quantity known as a “ball” – 3.5 grams of ice – was selling for between $3,500 and $4,000 at the time.
Police also uncovered a pattern of suspicious bank deposits during the three-month trafficking period.
Of the 123 transactions through Wagner’s account, the prosecution identified 97, worth $42,230, as drug payments, many disguised under labels such as “wood” and “flowers”.
In one case, a single customer made 24 deposits totalling $17,650 in less than a month, with almost all labelled as wood.
Wagner tried to distance himself from the operation, telling the court Hopkinson ran the business and that he had only driven her to deals and taken phone calls on her behalf.
He claimed the cash hidden behind the bathroom wall came from an inheritance and legitimate sales.
But Brett found Wagner’s evidence “completely devoid of credit” and described his explanations as “far-fetched and fanciful”.
The judge said Wagner had been “deliberately misconstruing and lying” about the phone intercepts in an attempt to shift blame on to his former partner.
The court ordered the $35,200 forfeited to the state and imposed a further penalty of $25,830, representing assessed drug profits minus the seized cash.
Brett said Wagner showed no genuine remorse and that his guilty plea carried limited weight, given the court had been forced to hold a contested hearing to resolve disputed facts.
Wagner has prior drug convictions, including a 2012 suspended sentence for cultivating cannabis for sale at the same Dromedary property.
He will be eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence, which was backdated to late January 2026.
