Jason Gioffre jailed for trafficking a commercial amount of ice

A drug trafficker once found to be a “significant player” in Geelong’s ice trade and whose home was an “Aladdin’s cave” of weapons, cash and drugs has learnt his fate.

A County Court judge in 2013 found Jason Gioffre to be a significant player in the supply of ice in Geelong. He’s now also been sentenced in 2019 and 2025 for trafficking the drug.

A Geelong drug trafficker whose home was an “Aladdin’s cave” of weapons, cash and drugs will spend more than a decade behind bars.

Jason Anthony Gioffre, 37, appeared in the County Court at Geelong on Thursday, having earlier pleaded guilty to charges including trafficking a commercial amount of ice.

Judge Michael Tinney jailed Gioffre for a maximum of thirteen-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of 10 and a half years.

Such a “sizeable” sentence was inevitable, Judge Tinney said, with Gioffre’s conduct being “undoubtedly serious offending”.

“That is just the sad reality of you making a decision, a choice – that’s what it was – to offend in the serious way you have,” Judge Tinney said.

Police raided Gioffre’s Belmont unit on December 5, 2023, seizing 290.5g of ice, more than $160,000 cash, 3D-printed firearms and a handgun along with a silencer, some of which was hidden in secret compartments.

Among the items found was a currency binding machine, something Judge Tinney said he had not seen before.

“That’s a machine designed to bind what would be described in the television series Breaking Bad, as the ‘fat stacks of cash’.” Judge Tinney said.

Judge Tinney described Gioffre’s unit as a “virtual Aladdin’s cave” and said while the summary of facts stated Gioffre was unemployed at the time of the offending, “the truth is, on this day, you were a drug trafficker”.

It was a role Gioffre had occupied before, Judge Tinney noted, having been convicted in 2013 and 2019.

“You just keep trafficking in drugs, despite prison sentences being imposed upon you,” Judge Tinney said.

“I plainly must protect the community from you, and I plainly must try again to deter you from future offending.”

The court heard the sentencing judge in 2013 found Gioffre was a “significant player in the supply of methylamphetamine in Geelong”.

Judge Tinney accepted that Gioffre showed some remorse, had a less than enviable background and was disadvantaged “do a degree” but it only led to a “very modest reduction in culpability”

Gioffre’s own struggles with drugs did little to explain his offending, Judge Tinney told the court, with financial gain the only reasonably motivation of trafficking “at this level”.

“You are a mile removed from those unfortunate addicts who are caught up in a miserable if not pitiable existence of small-time trafficking to support their own habit,” he said, stating Gioffre’s moral culpability was high.

Judge Tinney said he had “no doubt” that Gioffre “knew exactly what (he) was doing”

“You are not some silly teenager committing his first offence, you are yet again before this court for the third time in a dozen years,” Judge Tinney said.

“You knew you were playing a very high stakes game here”

Without his plea, Judge Tinney said he would have jailed Gioffre for fifteen years.

Originally published as Jason Gioffre jailed for trafficking a commercial amount of ice