Cairns cocaine dealer Matt Hilton jailed for 10 years over trafficking charge

A Queensland cocaine trafficker who sold “multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars” of the party drug in his local city and lived the “flash lifestyle” of the “big-time drug dealer about town” has been sentenced.

Cairns drug trafficking accused Matt Hilton

COCAINE trafficker Matt Hilton who sold “multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars” of the party drug in Cairns has been sentenced to 10 years and 6 months.

Cairns Supreme Court Judge Jim Henry said Hilton lived the “flash lifestyle” of the “big-time drug dealer about town”.

Trafficker’s cocaine use ‘superhuman’

Hilton pleaded guilty to trafficking steroids, cocaine, crystal meth and ecstasy pills between March 1, 2016 and January 3, 2018.

Judge Henry said “damning evidence” was gathered by a listening device planted by police in his luxury Chrysler sedan during a covert two-year sting.

“Cocaine, that’s my game, there’s lots more profit in it, and it moves quicker,’’ Hilton was recorded saying on secret tapes.

“Happy days, dak that down,’’ he said, as he hands over packets of cocaine to a customer.

“That’s how I make my money.”

Cairns drug trafficker Matt Hilton.

Justice Henry said his level of criminality was obvious as a “wholesale buyer” and on-selling of large amounts of drugs from organised crime syndicate.

“You would happily encourage and educate others on how to sell drugs they were buying from you,’’ he said.

“You were alive to the risk you were taking, and the need to make money from it.

“It was a business.

“Your trafficking (cocaine) was a calculated and commercial. A happy side-effect was ready availability of a drug you liked so much.”

Hilton snorted up to a gram a day of coke as an “enthusiastic user of the drug” but was not “drug-addled”, the court heard.

Matt Hilton walks from the Cairns Courthouse during his trial. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

The Cairns fitness trainer, former hairdresser and nightclub security company owner – with more than 13,000 followers on Instagram – is one of a new generation of party drug traffickers more “business than gangster’’.

With his Adonis looks, ripped physique and stunning girlfriend, the 33-year-old muscle model liked to post pictures of his gym workouts, tattoos, and social life in the tropical far north Queensland tourist haven.

In a covert two-year sting by police using phone taps and a listening device planted in his car, Hilton was unmasked as a “wholesale” party drug dealer with links to a sophisticated organised crime racket operating between Sydney and Cairns.

More to come