Mathew Lee Ireland swallowed balloons of meth, suboxone to sell in prison

A drug mule who went to extremes to get a “vast amount” of narcotics into a Queensland jail was caught - but it would take toilet trips and a strip search to recover the illegal haul.

Mathew Lee Ireland, 28.

An institutionalised son of a drug addict turned himself into a drug mule, smuggling balloons of narcotics into a Queensland prison.

And it wasn’t the first time Mathew Lee Ireland, 28, committed crimes while incarcerated, Rockhampton District Court heard this week.

Crown prosecutor Matthew Sutton said Ireland was on parole and taken back into custody on May 7, 2023, for breaching bail over a king-hit of a fellow prisoner and just before a full body search, he confessed he had swallowed the balloons.

Inside three of the packages Ireland had swallowed, Capricornia Correctional Centre officers found 409 strips of buprenorphine, three grams of marijuana, 2.6 grams of a mixture of methamphetamines and MDMA, 1.6 grams of MDMA, 69 steroid capsules, four tabs of LSD, tobacco and papers, and a blood pressure control pill.

Four days later, Ireland attempted to supply a fellow inmate with two suboxone strips by placing them inside a book and asking a prison guard to give it to the other prisoner.

The guard found the supply and Ireland’s cell was searched, revealing he still had two suboxone strips in his possession.

Two days later, Ireland asked to move cells permanently but was refused.

He then defecated another four suboxone strips and handed them over to the prison officers.

However, five days later, a strip search revealed Ireland had concealed more drugs in his foreskin.

They found three plastic wrappers containing 0.099gms of meth and another four suboxone.

“Clearly there is a commercial motivation for your offending,” Judge Jeff Clarke said.

“There was a vast quantity of some dangerous drugs being transported into prison in your body.

“A suboxone strip is worth a lot of money, especially in prison.

“You had over 400 of them which you muled yourself into prison in your own body.
“You had a smorgasbord of other drugs.

“It would seem that in addition to being a drug addict, you are institutionalised to the point where you are prepared to commit serious offences in prison.”

The court heard the king-hit assault, for which he was sentenced to two years prison in August 2023, was to enforce payment of prison protection money.

Defence barrister Jordan Ahlstrand said his client’s mother had been a drug addict.

He said Ireland had done a rehabilitation course in prison and was now on the waiting list to go on an opioid treatment plan.

Ireland, who the court heard had one child, had limited education and employment skills, having only ever worked at a cane farm once.

The court heard Ireland was found possessing a phone used in drug crimes, concealed in his underwear when he was searched at the Rockhampton watch-house before transport to prison on May 7, 2023.

Judge Clarke said this latest round of offending showed Ireland was escalating and he did not believe he had good prospects for rehabilitation.

Ireland pleaded guilty on May 10 to 10 counts of possessing a dangerous drug, one of supplying a dangerous drug in a correctional centre, one of buying or possessing S4 or S8 medicines or hazardous poisons and one of attempting to take a prohibited item into a prison.

Judge Clarke sentenced him to three years prison, cumulative on the king-hit two-year sentence with parole eligibility from April 13, 2026.