From grannies to tradies: NSW weed dealers named | List
From a drug-dealing granny to tradies, and even an unemployed mother of four, these dealers were busted putting weed onto the streets of NSW. See the list.
Police & Courts
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From a granny known as “Nanny Tex” to tradies, and even an unemployed mum of four kids, the state’s busted weed dealers use unassuming suburban homes and all kinds of code words to hide their offending.
According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, in 2020 cannabis was the drug most commonly possessed by NSW residents, followed by amphetamines, other drugs, cocaine, then ecstasy.
These are the stories of some of NSW’s convicted weed dealers and what happened when they were forced to face the music.
LORETTA ROBINSON
Drug-dealing granny Loretta Robinson was released on parole last year after spending a year in some of Sydney’s hardest prisons.
The 71-year-old — known affectionately as “Nanny Tex” to her family members — was arrested at her small brick cottage in Hurstville in 2019 where police seized cannabis, ice, a revolver and a taser.
Police had alleged she used her unassuming suburban house to run her ice and cannabis supply operation before her arrest.
She pleaded guilty to prohibited drug supply, prohibited drug possession and was sentenced in Sutherland Local Court to 18 months jail with a non-parole period of 12 months.
MARK EL KOUSSA
This western Sydney tradie has claimed he did not realise police wanted to pull him over at the end of a drug deal when he sped off from the scene on the wrong side of the road.
Mark El Koussa, 37, of Quakers Hill, admitted to supplying more than an indictable quantity of cannabis and driving recklessly when undercover police nabbed him in the middle of a drug exchange in an industrial area of Huntingwood in May, 2019.
According to police facts, El Koussa met with another man in a car on Watch House Road at about 1pm when he received almost 4.5kg of cannabis.
Two unmarked police cars attempted to block El Koussa’s car from leaving the scene when he swerved away and sped off onto Reservoir Rd, Prospect.
Last year, he was sentenced to 18 monthsin jail, with a non-parole period of six months.
He was also disqualified from driving for 18 months and fined $1000.
JESSE HOLLOWAY
This electrician took drug orders from customers through a coded mobile messaging app sourced from the dark web and the proceeds were used to pay off his $1.1 million Mona Vale mortgage.
Jesse Lindsay Holloway, 29, pleaded guilty to 28 drug-related charges after he was arrested in the Mona Vale Aldi carpark in November 2018.
Police said he obtained ecstasy powder, LSD and cannabis from the dark web and used the acronym ‘spidermanmj’ to arrange the supply of the illegal drugs via an encrypted instant messaging network app called Wickr.
Police believe he had been supplying prohibited drugs for “several years” and called his operation “highly organised”.
Between September 19 and 20, 2018, a series of encrypted communications were recorded as being sent by Holloway where he agreed to supply a witness with MDMA powder and 10 tabs of LSD for a total cost of $1600.
After searching his car, officers found cash totalling $5,515, and in his flat, they seized cannabis leaf, MDMA, Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD and cannabis oil.
Holloway was sentenced in November 2019 to a total of four years in prison, with parole eligibility on in August this year.
ALINA LAVINIA ANTAL
A glamorous woman who ran a drug syndicate that used children to supply cannabis to desperate potheads did it as she thought it would be an “easy way of making money”.
Alina Lavinia Antal, 31, is behind bars after pleading guilty to her role as “second-in-command” of a criminal group that supplied cannabis across southwest Sydney.
Antal, a paralegal, was sentenced to three years and six months in jail with two years non-parole in 2019.
Court documents reveal Antal would reprimand drug runners, including two unknown men, on their “work ethic”.
GENEVIEVE HORSLEY
Working under the pseudonym ‘Gucci Grey’ and advertising on Facebook page ‘Vegetables Australia’, Genevieve Horsley dealt cannabis, MDMA, acid and Xanax out of her Alexandria home.
The 21-year-old narrowly avoided jail time in 2019 after she was caught dealing drugs online between June 2018 and August 2018.
The judge presiding over the case, Penelope Wass, called the offending “unsophisticated” as she “advertised on Facebook with little coding”.
She peddled the substances under the codenames ‘broccoli’ and ‘capsicums’, with capsicums referring to MDMA caps and broccoli to cannabis.
Horsley pleaded guilty to dealing drugs from the family home and growing a prohibited plant – after she voluntarily led police to a cannabis plant she was cultivating in her bedroom wardrobe during her arrest.
She was placed on a 12-month intensive corrections order at Downing Centre District Court.
TIEGAN HAYES
This low-level weed dealer was busted as part of an investigation into a family-run drug syndicate.
Tiegan Hayes, of The Entrance, was sentenced to a 16-month intensive corrections order for her role.
The 22-year-old was sentenced in Wyong Local Court last year, just over a year after she and several other people were arrested in January 2019 during six simultaneous raids across five suburbs on the Central Coast.
Hayes was charged with 19 drug offences, to which she pleaded guilty to one count of ongoing supply on the second day of her hearing with the rest of the charges taken into account at her sentencing.
In telephone intercepts, Hayes and her upline supplier used coded conversations “in an attempt to disguise their activities from investigating authorities” with words such as “stick”, “half bag”, ounce” and the term “come and see me” which is commonly used by drug users and suppliers.
ADAM CARNEVALE
A former Dubbo panel beater did 12 drug deals totalling $372,500 with an undercover police officer, a court has heard.
Last year, Adam Daniel Carnevale was handed a three-year-and-nine-month jail term after he pleaded guilty to supplying 56.5kg of cannabis and dealing with $416,500 in proceeds of crime between July 2018 and March 2019.
Carnevale sold the cannabis to his apprentice and various street-level dealers.
In conversations intercepted by police, Carnevale and his customers used a system of coded language to refer to their drug deals and avoid detection.
Carnevale and customers regularly mentioned “calling in for a beer” at the smash repair shop and “picking up parts”, court documents revealed.
Carnevale will become eligible for parole on June 17 next year.
AHN VU HOANG AND TRONG DUNG BUI
A man who helped secretly cultivate marijuana in unassuming homes across western Sydney originally thought he was being paid to house-sit and water the plants.
Vietnamese nationals Anh Vu Hoang, 38, and Trong Dung Bui, 20, both from Bankstown, were among 11 people arrested in March 2020 following nine month police investigation Strike Force Riche which saw officers seize a haul of cannabis buds worth $3 million.
Overall, the raids targeted homes in Liverpool, Bankstown, Lansvale, Revesby, Punchbowl and Yagoona.
The duo were housemates and court documents show when police raided their Bankstown home, they found 113 seedlings and 24.5g of cannabis leaf.
Both men pleaded guilty to knowingly cultivating the cannabis in a quantity defined as a larger than small but below the commercial band.
District Court Judge Andrew Coleman, who defined the role of both men as “crop sitters” sentenced Hoang in July to 22 months jail with a non‑parole period of 16 months.
Bui was sentence 18 months jail with a non-parole period of 11 months.
SUSAN WAKELING
Unemployed mother-of-four Susan Margaret Wakeling was jailed for her part in an drug ring using Coles shopping bags in an attempt to conceal the transactions from police.
The 39-year-old was stopped by police on The Entrance Rd, The Entrance, on June 27, 2019, after officers noticed her driving too close to another car and at a slow speed.
Court documents said Wakeling initially told officers she had a migraine and was driving to have a break from her children.
Police searched the car after smelling cannabis and found a large sum of cash and four resealable bags with white powder – later identified as 1.34 grams of methamphetamine – inside her handbag.
The documents said she told police, “that’s mine, you’ll find some more stuff in the back”.
Officers located 445.3 grams of cannabis in the boot of the car.
The documents said prior to the vehicle stop, Strike Force Lamprey had been intercepting phone calls between Wakeling and eight others involved in the drug ring.
Wakeling was convicted of supplying drugs and participating in a criminal group.
She was originally sentenced to 18 months’ jail with a non-parole period of 11 months and 21 days, but had her non-parole period reduced to eight months on appeal.
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