The crimes and sentences of Adelaide's drug criminals in 2020 exposed
From an ice trafficker busted in his underwear to a contraband smuggler – drugs were key to these offenders’ crimes. Here’s what happened when they faced court.
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From a prison officer who smuggled drugs into jail for inmates to a large-scale ice trafficker busted in his underwear, Adelaide’s courts have heard the cases of a long list of drug offenders over the past year.
Here are some of the most shocking cases.
MATTHEW GRECO
A man turned to using meth and trafficking drugs after his stepbrother rose to fame on Married At First Sight and left him to run the family business alone.
Matthew Raymond Greco, 33, pleaded guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court in December to possessing a controlled drug and equipment.
A prosecutor told the court Greco, of Colonel Light Gardens, was stopped by police on April 14 last year at Hyde Park when they noticed a car defect.
“They observed an ice pipe and a bottle of liquid,” the prosecutor said.
A search of the car also found methamphetamine while the bottle was found to contain the drug GHB, also known as fantasy.
“He said he uses methamphetamine because he works long hours and he uses GHB and fantasy for a toothache,” the prosecutor said.
Michael Woods, for Greco, told the court the defendant turned to the “evil drug” to cope with working long hours at an Adelaide Central Market fruit and vegetable stall.
Greco’s mother married the owner of the stall, who had two sons of his own.
One was Jesse Konstantinoff, who shot to fame in 2017 as the Adelaide fruit and veg vendor on popular reality show Married At First Sight.
The court heard Greco’s stepfather used to be the one buying produce at 2am in the morning for the stall, but now Greco had been left with the responsibility.
“One of his sons, Jesse was doing it, but Jesse made his fame on Married At First Sight and then went on to Melbourne after the father’s stroke,” Mr Woods said.
Mr Woods told the court Greco had also pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in the Adelaide
District Court, with the sentencing adjourned until later this month.
Greco was convicted, with no further punishment.
HOUSHANG NAROIE
An Adelaide man caught with more than $18 million worth of ice at a lab set up in a suburban home has been jailed.
Houshang Naroie, 38, was hiding and wearing only his underwear when police raided a property at Morphett Vale in October 2018.
Inside, they found nearly 40 kilograms of methamphetamine in various forms, as well as large pots, ring burners and buckets containing waste products.
Sentencing Naroie in the District Court in August, Judge Jane Schammer said it was likely the drugs would have been sold in kilogram amounts to high or mid-level dealers.
“If sold in kilogram amounts, the methamphetamine had a value of approximately $4.2 million,” she said.
“However, if sold in points, its value was approximately $18.3 million – representing about 366,000 individual street deals.”
Naroie pleaded guilty to one count of manufacturing a large commercial quantity of a controlled drug.
He was sentenced to seven years, two months behind bars, with a non-parole period of four years.
KYLIE HIE
A South Australian mum who killed her daughter while driving high on ice was dealing the deadly drug while she waited to be sentenced for the crash, a court has heard.
But Kylie Anne Hie, 38, will likely be allowed to serve her latest sentence on home detention, after a judge found she had undergone a “remarkable process of rehabilitation”.
Hie’s four-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was killed when she crashed her van into the back of a truck on the South Eastern Freeway, in Adelaide, in November 2013.
In 2017, she was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to an aggravated count of causing death by dangerous driving.
Adelaide District Court heard that Hie and her then-partner were caught trafficking drugs to an undercover police operative on three occasions in 2016 while she was awaiting sentence for the crash.
She was caught with ice and arrested in the carpark of a pub in Kilburn, north of the CBD, in August of that year, while police found nearly $7000 in cash during a later search of her home.
Hie pleaded guilty to four counts of drug trafficking as well as a dishonesty charge.
In handing down his sentence for the drug charges in August, Judge Rauf Soulio said she had suffered significant grief and trauma after the crash.
He sentenced her to a non-parole period of two years and six months, but allowed her to wholly serve the term on home detention.
SAXON PEPPER
More than a decade after he appeared as a contestant on reality TV juggernaut Big Brother, Saxon Pepper found himself on home detention of a different kind.
Pepper was sentenced in the South Australian District Court in August after he pleaded guilty to drugs, weapons and driving charges, as well as breaching his bail.
The 35-year-old was caught by police with a shotgun hidden in his wardrobe, a baton under his bed and a credit card knife in his drawer.
The court was told that, in 2016, he was kidnapped by bikies and tortured for hours.
“Since 2017, you have been threatened by people over a drug debt and a large, heavily-tattooed man said he would ‘destroy your existence when you least expect it’,” Judge Joana Fuller said in sentencing.
“You told police the fantasy (drug) was ‘Jungle Juice’, a sexual aid.
“That was a lie, you used fantasy because it helped your insomnia.”
Judge Fuller said Pepper has a “complex mental health history”, and he struggled after he appeared as a contestant on Channel 10’s eighth season of the show in 2008, which was hosted by Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.
Pepper was jailed for two years, six months, with a non-parole period of 18 months.
Judge Fuller allowed him to serve the entire sentence on home detention.
MICHELLE SCUTCHINGS
A nurse with a “substance abuse problem” stole opioid drugs from her workplace more than 160 times over a two-month period by falsifying records and forging the signatures of colleagues, a tribunal has found.
Michelle Scutchings was employed as a registered nurse in the emergency department of the Flinders Medical Centre when she stole fentanyl and morphine from secure rooms and cupboards at the hospital in early 2017.
Her registration was suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Board after allegations of theft came to light, and she later surrendered her registration and resigned from her position.
An investigation found that Scutchings was captured on CCTV wearing her uniform entering drug rooms at times when she was off work on personal carer’s leave, a published judgment of South Australia’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal said.
It was also revealed she had recorded about 312 fake entries on a drugs register by documenting non-existent patients or existing patients who had no written medical order.
She signed as both the administering nurse and checking nurse in order to cover her tracks, and falsified the signatures of her colleagues.
In March 2018, Scutchings was arrested for the offences of theft and abuse of public office, and she pleaded guilty to theft almost a year later.
A magistrate handed her 12-month good behaviour bond and recorded a conviction.
MICHAEL CHARLES ASKER
Michael Charles Asker broke his oath as a prison officer to smuggle contraband to inmates – in May, he narrowly avoided joining them behind bars.
Asker, 66, of Modbury Heights, looked visibly relieved as the District Court ordered he serve his two-and-a-half-year corruption sentence on home detention, rather than in prison.
Judge Liesl Chapman said Asker was fortunate to have avoided an immediate custodial sentence for accepting cash bribes to bring drugs into jails.
Asker pleaded guilty to one count of bribery.
In September 2018, he took a fast-food bag containing suboxone – an opioid-withdrawal treatment – and glue into Yatala Labour Prison, and was paid $250.
In December 2018, he received a further $500 in an empty coffee cup in exchange for the illicit delivery.
Asker was subsequently intercepted attempting to bring another package, containing methylamphetamine, into the prison.
Judge Chapman imposed a non-parole period of 15 months, and ordered Asker be subject to electronic monitoring – by his former peers – while on home detention.
KEENAN RHYS BOWKER
A cocaine addict who played a vital role in a crime syndicate’s attempt to smuggle $3.7 million worth of drugs, hidden inside aircraft parts, has been jailed for six years.
The District Court said Keenan Rhys Bowker deserved no less than immediate jail time for his crime, which he committed in order to score “easy money”.
Bowker, 24, of Para Vista, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a controlled drug, namely methylamphetamine.
In 2016, Australian Federal Police and Border Force officers intercepted three packages of aircraft cylinders coming from Malaysia and replaced the methylamphetamine inside with an inert substance.
Bowker subsequently collected the parcels and took them to an address at Wingfield, where he was caught.
Officers caught him removing the substance in the belief it was methylamphetamine.
Judge Joanne Tracey imposed a non-parole period of two years and nine months.
DANIEL ROBERT WEEKES
An Adelaide trafficker who used a code based on fishing gear to discuss the drug ice had his partner buy rods and reels and “make them look used” after his arrest, a court has heard.
Daniel Robert Weekes, 38, was granted home detention bail by the Supreme Court after his partner, Stevie-Lee Marjorie Bassett, submitted photographs purportedly of his equipment collection.
Weekes, a “street-level drug dealer”, was arrested in July 2019 after telephone intercepts revealed he trafficked ice seven times between November 2018 and May 2018.
The phone calls revealed a code that referred to fishing, fishing rods and reels was used to discuss the trafficking operation.
At his home, police found two mobile phones, nearly $1000 cash, digital scales, plastic resealable bags, rubber bands and an ice pipe.
Weekes pleaded guilty to seven counts of trafficking in a controlled drug, fabricating evidence and knowingly using fabricated evidence.
He was sentenced to five years and five months behind bars with a non-parole period of four years and three months.
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