Young Sydney drug dealers face brutal consequences
Dreams of the high life, the false promise of fast money and – at times – crippling addiction have left the lives of young people in tatters as they were lured into the doomed profession of drug dealing.
Central Sydney
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The allure of fast cash and the high life is luring otherwise law-abiding young adults into risky drug supply gambits which wind up destroying their lives.
A Sydney magistrate recently said “not a day goes by” in court without a sentence for someone involved in a dial-a-dealer style drug operation, as NSW Police continue to stamp out new players who believe they alone can avoid detection.
But time and time again, the courts hear the same stories about the same doomed operations.
Dial-a-dealers – often with no criminal record, acting at the behest of a higher authority – will take “orders”, sometimes expressed in code, through Snapchat or an encrypted messaging app such as WhatsApp or Telegram.
Police lie in wait at known hot spots – Double Bay’s night-life district, Northies in Cronulla, the Manly Corso – for the moment a car pulls up, a customer gets in, and is promptly dropped back off only metres down the road once the deal is done.
Some officers will pick up the customer clutching a bag – while others go after the dealer, and in minutes the jig is up.
What follows is, at best, a stern word from a magistrate and a single chance to avoid conviction – but at worst, is months or years behind bars.
Even once the legal ordeal is done, convicted offenders must then grapple with the prospect of never being allowed to travel to certain countries, or take certain jobs due to their criminal record.
“The NSW Police Force continues to target those involved in the drug supply chain on all levels,” a NSW Police spokesman said.
“Unfortunately, demand for prohibited drugs across the state remains constant among those in the community who choose the risk associated with their use.”
The spokesman said dial-a-dealing operations were “market-driven” and profits are often reinvested into other illicit commodities.
“Illicit drug use destroys lives, and those who are convicted of selling them face lengthy terms of imprisonment,” the NSW Police spokesman said.
“Anyone with information about ‘dial-a-dealer’ drug sales or the sale of prohibited drugs is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”
The Ted Noffs Foundation in Sydney’s east is a not-for-profit providing residential rehabilitation programs and community counselling services for children – sometimes as young as 12 – up to adults grappling with drug addiction.
Chief operating officer Mark Ferry said the allure of big money to be made and ingrained addiction were among motivations which led young people to dabble in drug dealing.
“In young people that we see, there’s usually a drug habit or use by the young person themselves, they’ll start with their own use and then they might start low level dealing to fund their own habit,” Mr Ferry said.
“Once they establish those networks and connections, some can move into the more serious side of dealing.”
The foundation – named for its founder, the revered late Wayside Chapel minister Ted Noffs – takes a holistic approach to drug addiction’s underlying causes.
“We see a lot of young people who have experienced one or more significant trauma events, – sexual assault, physical assault, mental health, there’s a whole range of things,” Mr Ferry said.
“You deal with the trauma, the mental health and the drug use can go away or reduce significantly because you’re dealing with the cause, not the symptom, which is often what the drug abuse is.”
Mr Ferry said about 26 per cent of young people in custody for drug-related offences reoffend – but in Ted Noffs’ services, there is a 62 per cent improvement on that rate.
“We have young people reducing their drug use, being reunited with families, going on to work and school, it’s about being able to build the whole life back for that person and give them other opportunities that most people take for granted,” Mr Ferry said.
Among their clients, young people from lower socio-economic groups and young Indigenous people are overrepresented – but Mr Ferry said there is no single typical young person who falls prey to the drug industry.
“Drug dealing can be a business enterprise and there is big money to be made,” Mr Ferry said.
“Usually quite a small amount of people, and not the lower level dealers, can make that money, but there’s a real lure in there, the excitement of it, until these young people soon realise that’s not the case.”
In September 2017, detectives from the Central Metropolitan South Region Enforcement Squad established Strike Force Northrop to investigate and target cocaine supply in greater Sydney.
Between September 2017 and November 2021, Strike Force Northrop investigators had seized more than 5kg of cocaine, 490g of MDMA, 1.1kg of cannabis and more than $1.12 million cash.
In November 2021, squad commander Detective Acting Inspector Matthew Stratton said dial-a-dealers were profiting from illegal activities and knowingly putting lives at risk.
“If you are dealing or using drugs, you will be charged and put before the courts,” Det A/Insp Stratton said.
“Those who continue to flout the law should know that these operations will continue, and any phone numbers found in seized devices will be contacted by police via text as investigations continue.”
The naive idea anyone could duck the long arm of the law forever – that they could be more subtle, that they alone could avoid detection – continues to leave young lives shattered.
From the moment of arrest to the day a conviction is made, or jail time set, the damage runs deep and wide – reputations in tatters, businesses lost, and dreams of travelling overseas someday now indefinitely out of reach.
Mackenzie McNally was a cleanskin who attended a nice Sydney private school for $19,000 a year before graduating from university with a media and communications degree.
But her stint as a cocaine dial-a-dealer codenamed “Big Macca” – during which she confessed to supplying 64.8g of cocaine – saw her narrowly avoid time behind bars.
The 22-year-old was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment to be served in the community for indictable drug supply and the court heard she was not a drug user, but “pretty desperate for money” when she made the life-altering error.
“Not a day goes by in this court where there isn’t a sentence for someone involved in a dial-a-dealer operation,” Magistrate Phillip Stewart said of McNally at Sutherland Local Court.
“That is how prevalent it is. The court has to do something about it.”
Two young men police allege were McNally’s upline suppliers remain before the court charged with cocaine supply.
One – a young father-to-be – has already lost his new cafe business in Sydney’s south after he was locked up on remand for three months following his arrest.
In another cautionary tale, Sydney property developer Matthew Doyle seemed to have it all – a beautiful wife, a busy social life, a successful business and a young child.
But increasingly lofty dreams of the high life have left Doyle languishing behind bars for at least five years after he fell for a police sting luring him into a fake arrangement to import 300kg of cocaine worth $85 million in 2019.
He pleaded guilty and was convicted of commercial drug supply over the doomed plot.
“I’m not a gangster, I’m a businessman,” Doyle was recorded saying to an undercover officer – though the distinction was never going to matter in a court of law.
His son will be six years old when Doyle is first eligible for parole in November 2024, and he remains locked in a battle with the NSW Crime Commission over the fate of his properties and assets which have been frozen as potential assets of crime.
Yet others wind up in a vicious cycle – trapped in an expensive addiction with no other way to finance it.
Real estate agent Jessie Dahdah was building up a promising career in Sydney’s southwest when police descended on his doorstep in February 2021.
Officers raiding his bedroom found cocaine, cash and steroids and Dahdah later pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine 12 times across Sydney’s suburbs before his arrest.
At a Supreme Court bail application prior to his sentence, Dahdah’s barrister told the court his client was himself addicted to cocaine – unbeknown to his parents – when he began dealing.
Dahdah transformed from a man with no criminal record to an inmate overnight, spending nine months behind bars on remand before he was sentenced to a two-year intensive corrections order with a curfew between 10pm and 5am.
But he was not the only person police netted that day, with his fiancee Rachel Dale also charged with drug possession after she claimed responsibility for a bag of MDMA tabs in their bedroom.
Already separated from her jailed fiance for several months, the risk manager was herself sentenced to a two-year conditional release order without conviction by Magistrate Jayeann Carney.
“She should not have been getting into the murky, dirty world of acquiring drugs,” Ms Carney remarked.
“She’s a fully functioning, self-actualised human being, she knew what she was doing, and she doesn’t have the sympathy of the court – she brought about her own demise.”
Yet another young woman learned her fate for her foray into the seedy underworld of drug supply after police tracked her from a suspected drug house in Sydney’s southwest to the moment she forgot to use her blinker through a roundabout.
Tiana Kaleel was another cleanskin, another ordinary person from an ordinary family, with an ordinary job as a childcare worker when police pulled her over in Burwood Heights in 2021.
Officers had watched her leave a suspected drug house in Greenacre armed with a Woolworths reusable bag – which turned out to contain almost half a kilo of the drug ice.
Kaleel pleaded guilty to commercial drug supply and narrowly avoided full-time jail, instead being sentenced to a 17-month intensive corrections order at Sydney District Court on July 4.
She had faced a potential maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment.
Yet another young man – previously unknown to police – received an evergreen warning from Sydney magistrate Joy Boulos after he pleaded guilty to two counts of prohibited drug supply, two counts of drug possession and one count of dealing with crime proceeds.
Tristian Allen was just 20 when he was caught supplying cocaine and MDMA outside Northies in Cronulla, where police are known to lie in wait for impending drug deals.
The cryptocurrency trader and CrossFit enthusiast narrowly avoided full time jail after Ms Boulos sentenced him to a 15-month intensive corrections order for the MDMA supply.
“You’re a fitness freak, but you’re out there supplying drugs and you don’t know what’s in them – rat poison?” Ms Boulos asked.
“A number of people who take these drugs die, and that’s the risk you’re taking – contributing to the death of someone, or going to jail today.”
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