Emin Yavuz: Canberra prisoner who led international drug ring jailed until at least 2023

Prisoner Emin Yavuz was trying pay off drug and gambling debts when he masterminded more than 2kg of MDMA being shipped to Australia.

Emin Yavuz was an inmate at Canberra’s notoriously badly-run prison Alexander Maconochie Centre when he became the mastermind of an international drug ring.

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The convicted drug dealer who became the mastermind for an inept group of mates’ Canberra-based international drug syndicate says he “cannot afford to let history repeat itself” by falling back into the drug trade.

Emin Yavuz, 31, was on Monday jailed and told he will not be released until at least 2023.

ACT Supreme Court Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson told Yavuz, a devout Muslim, she saw only a “glimmer of hope” he could lead a law-abiding life as she jailed him for eight years and six months with a non-parole period of five years and one month.

Canberra’s prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

Yavuz was serving time at Canberra’s prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, for a series of online drug imports in 2013 and 2014 when money launderer Peter Poulakis and delivery recipient Bilal Omari had a European contact, “Mr Sock” send two shipments of MDMA. The money to buy the drugs came largely from Lamborghini driving Canberra builder Youssef Jabal.

The first shipment was hidden in paint tins and the second was marked as camping frying pans. Yavuz, in a letter, told the court he was tempted into getting involved with the plot to pay off huge gambling and drug debts he racked up before he first landed in jail.

A psychological report said Yavuz’s latest drug offending was “a form of gambling”.

The court heard Yavuz had in the past year turned to religion and was studying Spanish and Arabic, and hoped to work as a translator and interpreter when released from jail.

Bilal Omari, right, pictured with cousin and co-offender Youssef Jabal, formed part of a Canberra drug import gang

Canberra cafe owner Peter Poulakis has been jailed for nearly six years for his leading role in an international drug syndicate. Picture: Instagram/Supplied

Yavuz now leads Muslim prayers at Canberra’s jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre and members of Canberra’s Muslim community provided a series of glowing character references.

Yavuz said he started using drugs when he was hanging out with “bad people I used to call friends” which Justice Loukas-Karlsson said showed “an element of attributing blame to others”.

Being in jail meant he couldn’t go to his grandmother’s funeral, nor to his brother’s, who died in an “accident” in Iraq.

If refused parole, Yavuz could be in jail until 2027.

Poulakis, a former cafe owner with ADHD, was on Friday jailed for five years and nine months.

Omari is due to be sentenced in November.

Charges against Jabal relating to the MDMA imports were dropped, but he is on an intensive corrections order for being knowingly involved in Omari’s separate cocaine trafficking.