Raffaele Marrone sentenced for drug trafficking from family home

A drug-dealing bikie who hid drugs, cash and lists of customers in unusual places outside his northern suburbs home has been sentenced for the offending.

A Finks bikie with an “insidious” drug addiction and a meth trafficking business, stored drugs and a tick lists in palm trees at the yard of his family’s northern suburbs home, a court has heard.

Raffaele Daniel Marrone, 45, had also told police he stored $11,100 in cash in a bush outside his Penfield Gardens “in case the home burnt down”.

The father-of-seven – who has taken steps to leave the outlaw motorcycle club – was jailed in the District Court for six years for the 2020 offending.

Raffaele Marrone has been sentenced for drug trafficking. Photo: Facebook

In sentencing, Judge Rauf Soulio said Marrone was first arrested in early June 2020 when police found 7.3g of mixed weight methylamphetamine in a bedroom.

He said that during the search, police seized CCTV footage from the home which showed Marrone and his wife “concealing items throughout the property”.

“The footage also appears to show people attending at the property purchasing drugs,” Judge Soulio said.

When they returned to again search his home, they located a plastic resealable bag containing 28.3g of MDMA “secreted in a palm tree in the front yard”.

Raffaele Marrone pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. Photo: Courts SA

Raffaele Marrone secreted drugs in palm trees at his home. Photo: Courts SA

In the same tree they found a handwritten tick list, while in another palm tree they found a bag containing 6.85g of mixed weight material including methamphetamine.

During another search, in July 2020, officers found a bag hidden in a bush containing $11,100 cash.

“You told police that you withdrew the cash from a bank some four months earlier and put it in the bush because you did not want the cash in the house in case the house burnt down,” he said.

But Judge Soulio said that in pleading guilty to the offending – which includes multiple counts of drug trafficking and a charge of money laundering – Marrone’s explanation “cannot be accepted”.

Mr Marrone’s wife, Tania Marrone, was charged with drug trafficking, but that charge was dropped.

He said Marrone had told the court he had taken steps to leave the Finks since his arrest, and his lawyer Craig Caldicott previously told the court his final step was to remove his tattoos but that could not occur in prison.

Prosecutors also previously told the court Marrone seemed to be “calling the shots” in an “ongoing commercial enterprise”.

Judge Soulio said he needed to deter Marrone and others from similar offending.

“As you well know from your own experience, methylamphetamine is a dangerous and insidious drug. It causes great harm in the community,” he said.

“Even if your involvement in the selling of that drug was designed to enable you to support your family, by selling that drug you contributed, potentially, harm to other families."

Judge Soulio declined to declare Marrone a serious repeat offender noting his efforts to kick his “insidious” drug addiction and steps to leave the Finks, as well as his family circumstances.

After discounts for his pleas, earlier time spent in custody and on bail, Judge Soulio set a head sentence of six years with a three-year non-parole period.

Marrone will be eligible for parole in February 2026.