Dealer sold ice to cops

Undercover police bring down meth middleman

A GOONDIWINDI drug dealer’s four-month operation came unstuck after he unwittingly sold ice and weapons, including two stolen rifles, to undercover police officers.

Keith John Dyball appeared in Toowoomba Supreme Court on Tuesday where he pleaded guilty to trafficking methylamphetamine to 35 different people between August 3 and December 10, 2019, as well as unlawfully supplying four weapons.

Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald told the court the 34-year-old was a middleman in an operation where he sourced methylamphetamine from a main supplier before selling street-level quantities of about 0.1g.

“In terms of his customer base … there were at least 35 people, many of those were end users though there were a handful of customers who were drug dealers themselves who then onsold the drug to their own customer base,” Ms Friedewald said.

“He dealt with customers on a daily basis, he negotiated with them, and also with other dealers and suppliers, and he actively sourced sales from his customer base.”

Ms Friedewald told the court on four occasions Dyball supplied the officers with a total of 25.372g, and when one of the transactions was below the quarter ounce arranged Dyball told the undercover officer he would “sort it” before sending him an image of a man with a bleeding cut above his eye.

The court was told during Dyball’s interactions with the undercover police officers he supplied four illegal weapons, including two shortened firearms that investigations revealed were stolen.

“The weapons, and the fact that two of them were stolen, aggravate the matter further,” Ms Friedewald submitted.

Dyball’s barrister David Jones said his client’s criminal history was one of many things that stood against him, but that Dyball had the support of his family, including his partner, mother and grandmother.

“There’s also the sadness that’s conveyed to Mr Dyball frequently of the sadness of his daughters that he isn’t home, so it’s a combination of those factors that one would hope would add to the sincerity of his intent to rehabilitate,” he said.

Justice Callaghan acknowledged the 654 days Dyball had spent in custody since his arrest on December 8, 2019 and sentenced Dyball to the mandatory two-and-a-half year prison sentence for the weapons offences, with a parole eligibility date of June 7, 2022. He also set a five-and-ahalf year prison sentence for the drug trafficking charge, with the same parole release date.