Glamorous Alina Antal guilty of being second-in-charge of southwest Sydney cannabis syndicate
EXCLUSIVE: A glamorous woman who ran a drug syndicate that used children to supply cannabis to desperate potheads did it as she thought it would be an “easy way of making money”.
NSW
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EXCLUSIVE: A glamorous woman who ran a drug syndicate that used children to supply cannabis to desperate potheads did it as she thought it would be an “easy way of making money”.
Alina Lavinia Antal, 31, is behind bars waiting to be sentenced next month after pleading guilty to her role as “second-in-command” of a criminal group that supplied cannabis across southwest Sydney.
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At the top of the syndicate was her on-again off-again lover Oliver Merza, 28, who directed operations from Silverwater prison using a contraband mobile phone.
Merza, an alleged Assyrian gang associate, managed to smuggle in and hide at least 14 phones before being thrown into Goulburn Supermax for seven months.
Other members of the 12-person crew busted by police in February 2017 included drug runners Ronaldo Odisho, 20, Korkis Sefo, 22, and Andrew Koro, 27, and four minors.
Court documents show the group had two drug houses — one in Cabramatta and another in Fairfield.
And even after police raided one of the homes — finding a bedroom solely dedicated to packaging and storing weed — the group continued its operation unaware police were watching their every move.
Court documents reveal Antal would reprimand drug runners, including two unknown men, on their “work ethic” and she and Merza discussed Koro “needing to be reprimanded” because he was not “on the ball”.
Merza’s barrister Michael Pickin claimed it was a “run-of-the-mill” operation and not a gang. But Crown Prosecutor Alex Brown said there was some level of sophistication and it was a “significant syndicate”.
“This is organised and organised from prison I might add,” she said.
Antal’s barrister William Brewer said at a sentence hearing at Downing Centre District Court this week that the petite 31-year-old former office worker had taken comfort from being in jail.
He said she suffered crippling anxiety and her condition made it too difficult to work a normal job and she thought selling cannabis would be an “easy way of making money”.
In an apologetic letter penned to the court Antal claimed she thought her actions were a “victimless crime” but that she was “ashamed” of herself”.
All seven adult offenders, including additional drug runners Yousif Kiorkis and Romario Patto, are due to be sentenced on February 15 in Wollongong.