$1m drugs haul in man’s underwear

A HOBART man who stashed $1 million worth of ice in his undies and tried to smuggle it into the state had been released from jail just days before committing the crime, a court has heard.

Terry Henry Simpson, 31, has pleaded guilty to trafficking a controlled substance in September.

The facts of the case were yesterday read out in the Supreme Court in Hobart before Justice Michael Brett.

The court heard Simpson took a flight to Sydney on August 22, just five days after being released from prison on aggravated burglary and stealing charges.

Crown prosecutor Simone Wilson said Simpson returned to Hobart two days later on a Virgin flight about 3pm.

“The accused walked past a drug detection dog, which gave a positive indication to the presence of illicit drugs,” she said.

“Police told the accused that they were going to conduct a search and the accused then told police he had packa- ges. Upon searching the accused, police located one plastic wrapped package in the front of the accused’s underpants and a second plastic wrapped package in the accused’s underpants between his legs. The accused was wearing two pairs of underpants.”

Ms Wilson said police also seized a black Samsung mobile phone at the time of the search.

The packages were found to have a total of 1003.5g of crystal methamphetamine, with a potential street value of up to $1,003,500 if sold in Tasmania.

The court heard Simpson told police he had wrapped the packages himself with “Glad Wrap and sticky tape” and placed them in his pants before arriving at Sydney Airport.

He agreed that he used ice but made no comment about where he got the drugs from or where they were to be sold, only saying “where would I get the money to buy these drugs, I’m broke as a skunk”.

Ms Wilson said police discovered a number of text messages on the mobile phone between Simpson and an unknown associate which were related to “obtaining, packaging and transporting” drugs from New South Wales to Tasmania.

Defence lawyer Andrei Slicer told the court Simpson was only acting as a “courier” but Justice Brett said he would not accept the explanation without any evidence.

Further submissions will be heard before Justice Brett hands down his sentence on December 10.