GC woman in Tassie’s biggest ever drug bust

A Gold Coast woman expects a lengthy jail stint and losing her $1.5 million home after pleading guilty to Tasmania’s biggestever drug trafficking case.

Jacqueline Pauline Fiala, 50, has pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking – including movement of 26kg of ice, with a street value of up to $26m.

Fiala, who also trafficked cocaine and ketamine, had oversight of a trafficking operation using couriers who brought drugs into the state from Queensland via the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. The illicit substances were hidden in car tyres.

“The magnitude of the trafficking has no parallel in this state,” Supreme Court judge Stephen Estcourt said on Friday, in a pre-sentence hearing.

Defence barrister Greg Barns SC said Fiala acknowledged it was “extremely serious”.

He said she hadn’t funded a lavish lifestyle but had arranged for the drug money to be sent back to Queensland, where she was “dealing with some very heavy people”.

Mr Barns said Fiala had become involved after making an “extremely stupid and reckless decision” when she felt she’d had no choice but to help a man “embroiled” in Queensland’s drug trade.

Crown prosecutor Heather Denton said Fiala was arrested in 2021 and charged with trafficking 26kg of ice into Tasmania between November 2019 and May that year. She said the ice had a street value of up to $8.3m if sold by the ounce, or $26m if sold by the point. Fiala was also charged with trafficking $321,000 worth of cocaine, and $6480 worth of ketamine.

Mrs Denton said while Fiala was on bail, she offended again, charged in December 2021 with trafficking ice with a street value up to $239,000: “This trafficking was immense by Tasmanian standards.”

Mrs Denton said while the state was seeking to possess Fiala’s Broadbeach Waters home in a yet-to-be-assessed pecuniary penalty, it was not suggested it was “tainted” – or purchased with proceeds of crime.

Mr Barns said Fiala had no prior criminal history.