Dealer undone by betrayal Cousin spilt on meth trafficker’s operation
GAVIN, Germaine, Wade. Meth trafficker Gavin Giordimaina lived a life of aliases and excess until betrayed by his own family.
Giordimaina, now 24, ran an ice operation between Sydney and Cairns between February 2013 and June 2014, but authorities are still baffled as to how the Sydney man moved his product interstate.
“The money went from Cairns to Sydney by plane,” crown prosecutor Nathan Crane told Cairns Supreme Court yesterday.
“It must have been a sophisticated operation to move the drugs undetected; it is unknown how they got here or who moved them.”
The crown estimates Giordimaina’s business turned over close to $1 million in 15 months; “fast money” that was spent on a lavish lifestyle including a trip to Las Vegas.
Giordimaina pleaded guilty to trafficking and supplying a dangerous drug and receiving property from trafficking.
The court heard Giordimaina used the alias Wade or Germaine when selling to lowerlevel dealers and was careful to use prepaid “burner” phones to avoid police detection. But these customers would be his undoing.
“It is the statements by these three customers that form the basis of the allegations facing Mr Giordimaina,” Mr Crane said.
One of them spoke to officers despite threats by the accused that he would “slit her throat”. Unfazed, Giordimaina kept the money rolling in and the meth flowing north.
The defendant came to police attention in 2013 in an operation that scooped up his cousin, who was employed in the trafficking scheme for $2000 a week.
Family ties proved wanting under police pressure and Giordimaina’s cousin rolled over.
Officers searched Giordimaina in May 2014.
“All they could locate on him were seven mobile phones and one wig,” Mr Crane said.
Giordimaina’s cousin has been dealt with by the courts for his role in the operation.
Michael Dalton, defending, said his client was an outcast at school and as an apprentice tiler, was befriended by a dealer.
“In hindsight he was being recruited,” Mr Dalton said.
“It was that person who introduced him to Cairns.”
Justice Jim Henry said Giordimaina had been seduced by a lavish lifestyle. He sentenced him to nine years in jail including 741 days time served. Giordimaina will be eligible for parole after serving half his sentence.