Smuggler hid drugs in bra, court hears

A SYDNEY woman has admitted her involvement in a large-scale drug distribution business that involved the trafficking of ice and cocaine from NSW to Tasmania for more than a year.

Alexandra Rose Kobelke, 26, of Punchbowl, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday to a drug trafficking charge.

The court heard Kobelke was one of a number of people charged as a result of a Tasmania Police operation codenamed Monet.

Crown prosecutor Jackie Hartnett said the operation involved telephone intercepts, cameras and listening devices, physical surveillance and searches of hotel rooms that she said suspected drug traffickers were using as a base for their operations.

Ms Hartnett said NSW Police approached Kobelke at Sydney Airport in January when she was planning to board a flight to Hobart.

Ms Hartnett said Kobelke told police she was carrying illicit drugs, and produced quantities of ice, cocaine and ecstasy that was secreted in her bra and which had a potential street value of $150,000.

Ms Hartnett said hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken to NSW as part of the operation. She said Kobelke flew to Hobart 14 times between December 2017 and January this year.

“She was part of a largescale, organised and ongoing trafficking business,” Ms Hartnett said.

Kobelke’s lawyer Greg Richardson told the court his client had a difficult start to life and she had left home at the age of 15.

Mr Richardson said he did not dispute the drug trafficking operation was significant, but he said Kobelke “wasn’t part of the management, she was the worker bee” and was not receiving a percentage of the profits.

“She was promised significant amounts of money over 12 months, the vast majority of which were never paid,” he said.

Chief Justice Alan Blow adjourned the sentencing hearing until November 20.