Canberra cocaine: Jake Low, 28, pleads guilty to drug trafficking after police find ‘brick’ hidden in wall of his house
A Canberra sparky has told a court he let a drug boss expertly hide a kilogram brick of cocaine alongside handwritten notes in his home.
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A Canberra tradie busted with a kilo of cocaine expertly hidden in the wall cavity of his home has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, but says he was just babysitting the drugs.
Electrician Jake Low, 28, was arrested in May after a police raid on his home in Dunlop, in Canberra’s northeastern suburbs, where investigators found the “brick” of drugs in a wall cavity behind his oven.
They also found a series of notes “consistent with the recording of quantities of cocaine supplied and money owed”.
Low, who has since been granted bail, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday where his lawyer, Tim Sharman, said his client was facing a certain jail sentence, but that it could be served in the community on an intensive correction order.
The kilogram “brick” of cocaine has a street value of $250,000.
Low has pleaded guilty after prosecutors accepted the story that “he allowed (the cocaine) to be … secreted in his home” but that he was not a drug dealer himself.
In court documents, police say they also found $2200 in cash near the handwritten notes in the hallway cupboard, a set of scales with white powder on them and a Samsung mobile phone which appeared to be encrypted.
Those items, according to police, are “consistent with use in the trafficking of cocaine”.
Low’s criminal history involves only small-time cocaine charges.
When Low first appeared in court, the case against him was described as “strong” and Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker said if he was found guilty it was “highly likely (he) will serve a sentence of imprisonment”.
“Clearly the cocaine came from somewhere and was intended to go somewhere,” Ms Walker said in May.
On Thursday, Magistrate Louise Taylor ordered Low to be assessed for an intensive correction order.
Ms Taylor will sentence him in September.
