A Tasmanian man who attempted to smuggle nearly 60 grams of methylamphetamine, or ‘ice’, through the mail has been sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Bradley Philip McCall, 26, was caught out by a police detector dog at the Australia Post Mail Centre in St Leonards in January 2022.
The suspicious package addressed to McCall contained four silver sealed bags that were tested to contain 59.67 grams of methylamphetamine, more than double the traffickable quantity.
The next day, police arranged for the package to be delivered to McCall’s address with a substitute drug inside and began surveillance.
They watched as McCall retrieved the package from his letterbox and entered his home with it, prompting them to execute a search warrant.
The package was found open inside the property with the substitute drug still present, along with three sets of digital scales, a small amount of cannabis, a container containing creatine, gelatine capsules, $1,405 in cash and 239.5 Xanax tablets.
Various bags containing MDMA, cocaine and methylamphetamine were also found in the house.
Supreme Court Justice Tamara Jago said she accepted that McCall’s involvement in selling methylamphetamine stemmed from his own use of the substance but was also satisfied that he sold it to make money.
“Between June and December 2021, you had been selling the substance and you intended to keep doing so,” she said.
“Your involvement in trafficking methylamphetamine only ceased because you were apprehended, not because you desisted.”
“Methylamphetamine causes great harm in our community and those who seek to profit from the misery it causes should except to receive harsh punishment.”
Jago convicted McCall of the crimes and offences to which he pleaded guilty, fined him $1,000 and sentenced him to 14 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
McCall was also ordered to pay the $7,880 cost of the drug analysis.
