Facebook, Instagram, Wickr being used by drug dealers
Sydney criminals are going to extraordinary lengths to push their drugs through social media. One person recruited women on Instagram to try and get MDMA into a festival, while another used a ‘highly organised’ operation to sell LSD sourced from the dark web. See our full list of brazen online drug dealers.
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- The stories of Sutherland Shire and St George drug dealers
- Macarthur drug dealers: The stories behind the deals
Social media has become a hothouse for drug dealers looking to grow their customer bases.
Selling under pseudonyms like ‘Gucci Grey’ and ‘spidermanmj’, drugs are peddled via encrypted messaging services like Wickr, as well as on unsuspecting Facebook groups like ‘Vegetables Australia’.
These are the stories of some of Sydney’s dealers who have taken to social media to sell their wares.
GENEVIEVE HORSLEY
Working under the pseudonym ‘Gucci Grey’ and advertising on Facebook page ‘Vegetables Australia’, Genevieve Horsley dealt MDMA, acid and Xanax out of her Alexandria home.
The 21-year-old narrowly avoided jail time after she was caught dealing drugs online between June 2018 and August 2018, when she was arrested.
The judge in the case Penelope Wass called the offending “unsophisticated” as she “advertised on Facebook with little coding”.
She peddled the substances under the codenames ‘broccoli’ and ‘capsicums’, with capsicums referring to MDMA caps and broccoli to cannabis.
Horsley was caught after she sold more than five grams of MDMA to a registered police informant six times, to a total cost of $1150.
Horsley had also pleaded guilty to one count of growing a prohibited plant – after she voluntarily led police to a cannabis plant she was cultivating in her bedroom wardrobe during her arrest.
She was placed on a 12 month intensive corrections order at Downing Centre District Court last August.
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TRENT ELFORD-CIANTAR
Employing the username Mollyforu on the encrypted app Wickr, Trent Elford-Ciantar dealt drugs under the guise of food orders.
Upon uncovering the messages, police found that the large sums of money being discussed which related to purchasing “50 to 60 pizzas” or manoosh for a party were in fact code for drugs.
When police quested the 29-year-old Liverpool man about the Wickr messages, he said: “Do you know how expensive 50 to 60 pizzas are?”
A black Samsung seized by police revealed a horde of contacts who were looking for drugs across Sydney.
Along with these incriminating messages, police discovered 8g of MDMA hidden inside a plastic lunch box.
Judge Gina O’Rourke sentenced the real estate handyman to an 18 month intensive corrections order.
To read the full story, click here.
DYLAN SHAW
An undercover police officer organised to purchase drugs from Dylan Shaw off his Wickr and Whatsapp accounts.
The 25-year-old gym junkie from Wyee faced Gosford District Court in September last year after supplying drugs through two of his social media accounts in February 2018.
At one point Shaw told the undercover cop he would have trouble filling an order for 1000 MDMA pills because “my guy got busted” but he would find another supplier.
Shaw directed the undercover officer to transfer the money into his topless waitress girlfriend Nateesha Barlin’s Luxe Lashes business account or cash through Express Post.
The court heard Shaw met people through gym circles and on social media before directing them to an encrypted Whatsapp platform to organise deals.
A further search of his car uncovered $179,000 cash in a hidden compartment.
In his house, police found meth, $20,100, and 10.11g of cocaine hidden in the oven.
He was jailed for at least four years on drug supply charges.
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TRENT KEOGH
Trent Levi Keogh used Instagram to recruit two women to conceal drugs in Kinder Surprise casings to walk them into a music festival.
Early last year, three men – Sant Salas, 25, and Matthew Sultana, 24 and Mr Keogh, 26 – pleaded guilty to trying to get 270 capsules of the drug into Sydney Olympic Park’s Knockout Circuz in 2016.
“We’re trying to find someone to take in for us” Mr Keogh wrote to one of the women named as “Miss Martin” in court documents.
“How many,” Miss Martin replied.
“Maybe 150”, Keogh told her.
Miss Martin asked: “Are they small or big caps”. Keogh replied: “Small as”.
The pair haggled over the cost of the service, before Keogh agreed to pay the woman and her friend $150 and eight of the MDMA caps.
Keogh drove to a Baulkham Hills home and picked the women up before pulling into the Kellyville 7 Eleven to pick up a number of Kinder Surprises for the project.
Salas and Sultan were each sentenced to two years and seven months jail and a non-parole period of 20 months, while Keogh got two years and three months jail, with 17 months non-parole.
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JESSE HOLLOWAY
An electrician took drug orders from customers through a coded mobile messaging app sourced from the dark web.
The proceeds he used to pay off his $1.1 million Mona Vale mortgage.
Jesse Lindsay Holloway, 29 pleaded guilty to 28 drug-related charges after he was arrested in the Mona Vale Aldi car park in November 2018.
Police said he obtained ecstasy powder, LSD and cannabis from the dark web.
Police said he used the acronym ‘spidermanmj’ to arrange the supply of the illegal drugs via an encrypted instant messaging network app called Wickr.
Police believe he had been supplying prohibited drugs for “several years” and called his operation “highly organised”.
Between September 19 and 20 2018 a series of encrypted communications were recorded as being sent by Holloway where he agreed to supply a witness with MDMA powder and 10 tabs of LSD for a total cost of $1600.
After searching his car, officers found cash totalling $5,515, and in his flat, they seized cannabis leaf, MDMA, Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD and cannabis oil.
Holloway was sentenced in November 2019 to a total of four years in prison, with parole eligibility on August 23, 2021.
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