Adelaide man Clinton George Ribbon jailed for 17 years for importing pseudoephedrine

HE stood to make up to $60m selling ice after importing 13.5kg of pseudoephedrine — but now an Adelaide businessman has been jailed for 17 years after an AFP sting replaced it with Dilmah tea.

A SUCCESSFUL Adelaide businessman with no criminal history or drug problem, who imported pseudoephedrine from Thailand, has been jailed for 17 years — one of the longest sentences of its type in the state.

The District Court heard Clinton George Ribbon, of Norwood, was a “principal organiser and facilitator” in the importation of about 13.5kg of pseudoephedrine, which if converted into methylamphetamine and diluted could have had a street value of up to $60 million.

Ribbon, 61, was found guilty by jury of the Commonwealth offence of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled precursor.

He was sentenced to 17 years in jail with a non-parole period of 12 years, making it one of the most lengthiest prison terms of its type in SA.

In sentencing remarks published online, Judge Simon Stretton said Ribbon’s offending occurred between October 2013 and August 2014, when he was the director of a Thailand-based company called Complete Chemical Manufacturing Limited (CCM), which manufactured and distributed cleaning products in Australia.

However, the Australian Federal Police suspected Ribbon and other associates were involved in drug importation and began tapping their phones to listen to their conversations.

“Whilst these conversations were coded to suggest (Ribbon was) discussing the legitimate operation of CCM, it is established in the court’s view on the totality of the evidence that (Ribbon was) instead articulating a plan involving the importation of a large quantity of an illicit substance by concealing it within a consignment of CCM cleaning products,” Judge Stretton said.

“The plan involved (Ribbon) arranging for a man residing in Sydney … to set up a distributorship in Sydney being Complete Chemical Solutions to receive CCM products direct from Thailand.

“A number of shipping containers of legitimate CCM products were to be imported first to ensure that Australian Customs authorities did not then examine the later consignment containing the disguised illicit substance.”

The court heard that Australian Customs officers and Australian Federal Police found 10 five-litre bottles — containing a total of about 13.5kg of pseudoephedrine dissolved in almost 50L of liquid — in a shipping container that arrived in Port Botany, NSW in August, 2014.

The shopping container had been sent from Bangkok.

“That quantity of pseudoephedrine could be manufactured into approximately 15kg of methylamphetamine,” Judge Stretton said.

“If converted to methylamphetamine and sold on the street for $100 per 0.1 point deals it stood to generate over $15 million.

“Had the purity been diluted it could have been sold for as much as $60 million.”

AFP officers seized the bottles and substituted them with a mixture of water and Dilmah tea and packed them back into the shipping container, which was then delivered to a Sydney warehouse three days later, the court was told.

Officers continued to intercept telephone calls between Ribbon and others involved in the operation.

“Again in code, (Ribbon) discussed the imported pseudoephedrine and the difficulties (another person involved in the operation) was having in attempting to extract it from the substituted liquid,” Judge Stretton said.

The court heard pseudoephedrine was a solid substance that would be dissolved in liquid and recovered using evaporation.

AFP officers arrested Ribbon in October, 2014 and charged him with importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled precursor.

The court heard Ribbon was a “successful businessman” who was not addicted to, or even took, illicit drugs and he did not have any financial problems.

He also had no prior criminal convictions.

“Unfortunately, the only conclusion that the court can come to is that (Ribbon) committed the crime solely motivated by greed to make an extremely large sum of money, although the exact amount you stood to receive depends on matters unknowable by the court such as how the material would be sold and what the split would be between (Ribbon) and others involved,” Judge Stretton said.

Some of the more lengthy sentences handed down for drug offences over the past 10 years:

IN June 2017, Adelaide-based darknet drug dealers Sean Collopy and Gary Cooley won an appeal to reduce their lengthy prison terms.

Collopy’s 17-year head sentence was slashed to 12 years and two months while Cooley’s 14-year head sentence was reduced to 11 years and four months.

IN November 2016, Anthony John Scott, then 45, was jailed for 19 years and three months, with a non-parole period of 10 years and eight months, for smuggling $60 million worth of methamphetamines into Australia from Indonesia.

MARK Norman Millard was sentenced in 2008 when he was 46 years old to 15 years in jail with a non-parole period of eight years, for his part in a drug racket.

Police uncovered ecstasy, methylamphetamines, LSD, cocaine and cannabis, with a potential street value of $1.2 million, as well as two guns and $243,000 cash, at his mother’s home during a raid in 2006.