Charbel Hanna Jaja, 19: Mount Druitt ‘coke’ supplier caught with 12 bags in Manly
A western suburbs ‘dial-a-dealer’ cocaine supplier, selling to his affluent northern beaches clients, has been given a dressing down by a magistrate during sentencing. Read the remarks.
Manly
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A “dial-a-dealer” cocaine supplier from western Sydney was offering his “affluent” northern beaches customers the prohibited drug for $250 a bag.
He was given a dressing down by Magistrate Robyn Denes who suggested the Mt Druitt man was selling near Manly because he didn’t want to do so in his “hood” and chided him for making profit from people with addiction.
Manly Local Court was told Charbel Hanna Jaja was caught with 12 bags of “coke” in his car in the Manly CBD late on a Saturday night, just before Christmas last year.
The 19-year-old kitchen hand, who lives with his mum, was arrested on December 16 soon after police saw him pick up a male in his Kia Optima on Eustace St.
Police watched as Jaja drove the car left onto Sydney Rd before turning left onto James St — the wrong way down the one-way street — where he parked the car.
According to a facts sheet tendered to court, police saw the male passenger walk away from the Kia as they approached.
Officers asked Jaja what he was doing in the area. He told them the was just dropping off his girlfriend.
When Jaja became nervous, the court heard, police said they were going to search his car.
“I’m going to be honest with you guys, there is illegal stuff in the car,” he told police.
Police saw a number of resealable bags containing a white powder on the driver’s seat and on the floor in the driver’s side footwell.
Jaja told officers it was cocaine, according to the facts sheet.
Officers also found $5000 in cash in the footwell.
Jaja said he had only sold to two customers that night, the man in Manly and a client at Dee Why for the “usual” price of $250 a bag.
He pleaded guilty to one count each of supply prohibited drug (more than indictable quantity, less than commercial quantity); deal with property proceeds of crime and: disobey one-way street sign.
His lawyer told the court on Wednesday that Jaja, who lived with his mother, was the main income earner for the family after his father died in 2020.
The lawyer said that this was not an excuse for selling the cocaine.
“He understands the seriousness of the offences.”
Magistrate Robyn Denes described the supply as “dial-a-dealer” type of offending and that Jaja was doing it for financial gain.
“This is a serious problem in the community … a problem on the northern beaches as well as across Sydney.”
Ms Denes told Jaja, who had no criminal record, that perhaps he was selling on the northern beaches because the drug was “seen as affluent” and that perhaps he did not want to sell it “in his own hood”.
She said she was convicting him because she wanted to send a message to those “who want to make a buck off the misery of others”.
Jaja was handed a Community Corrections Order to be of good behaviour for three years. He was also fined $250 for disobeying the one-way street sign.
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