Shayne Morse picked up baby powder ketamine package for coke dealer he owed
An Illawarra man has fronted court after police caught him picking up a baby powder bottle jammed with what he thought was ketamine from the post office.
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An Illawarra man has admitted he collected what he thought was an imported haul of ketamine from the post office because he owed “a guy” a fair bit of money due to his cocaine addiction.
Horsley man Shayne Morse, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to possess a marketable quantity of an unlawfully imported substance and one count of posses a substance, that is suspected of having been unlawfully imported at Wollongong Local Court on Monday, after police caught him picking up what was originally a baby powder bottle full of ketamine from a Figtree post office.
Morse was arrested and charged on July 18 last year, after the Australian Border Force picked up on a suspicious package from the UK that was bound for a West Wollongong home.
After finding the baby powder bottle, police say in a set of agreed facts tendered to the court, that border force tested the powder, which returned a positive result for ketamine, and forwarded it to the AFP.
The AFP then replaced the 495.16g of ketamine with another white powder, and had on July 11, arranged for it be delivered to its intended address on Cochrane Street, West Wollongong.
The resident at the address, however, refused to accept the package. Later that day, an unknown person made inquiries about the whereabouts of the package.
Just over a week later on July 18, police delivered the package containing the baby powder bottle to Australia Post in Figtree and advised them to phone the number associated with delivery to advise the package was ready for pick-up.
Another unknown person answered the phone, and advised the post officer worker that a man would pick it up that day.
Minutes later, Morse drove to the post office, picked up the package, and once in his car discarded everything but the baby formula.
Police watched as he drove to his home in Horsley, where he was then arrested by police.
In a subsequent search of Morse’s vehicle, police also found a tub of protein powder containing almost 800g of ketamine, a mobile phone and 0.03g of cocaine in his wallet.
When asked about the phone, Morse said it was given to him by ‘a guy’ who had originally imported the baby powder.
After looking at the phone, police found tracking information about the package. When asked why and who he picked the package up for, Morse told police: “Uh, to be honest I have a cocaine addiction, and the guy I get my coke off - I owe him a fair bit of money.”
He told police in order to pay the debt he had to pick the package up for ‘the guy’ and that he didn’t know what was in the package but “figured it’s some sort of drugs”. He also denied making inquiries with Australia Post about the package.
After pleading guilty to the charges on Thursday, the matter was adjourned to the District Court for sentence.
Morse will make his first appearance in that court on May 3.