Gordonvale tradie, Jack Robert Werner Wegner, sentenced for trafficking methamphetamine
A 31-year-old Cairns tradie and young father who ran his own business, has been sentenced after police uncovered his second “sophisticated wholesale business” trafficking up to $1.4m of methylamphetamine.
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A 31-year-old Cairns tradie and young father who ran his own business has been sentenced after police uncovered his second “sophisticated wholesale business” trafficking up to $1.4m of methylamphetamine.
Gordonvale renderer Jack Robert Werner Wegner, who plead guilty to the charges, was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Cairns Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Crown Prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso submitted the trafficking business ran from May 22, 2022 to Jan 25, 2023 a period of around eight months in which Mr Wegner likely trafficked around 4.5kg or 160 ounces of Methylamphetamine which could have been worth up to $1.4 million.
“He was 29-30 years of age so he was a mature man when he undertook this sophisticated wholesale trafficking business and despite the use of the drug himself remained operating his own legitimate business,” Ms Kelso said.
Mr Wegner’s defence counsel Bebe Mellick conceded the estimate of the amount trafficked was reasonable.
Mr Mellick said Mr Wegner was thought of otherwise positively within the community and professionally separate from the charges.
He told the court Mr Wegner lived almost his whole life in Cairns, taking over his fathers rendering business when it went “belly up” and fathering a son with his partner of nine years.
Mr Mellick said Mr Wegner, in an “unfortunate set of matters”, began using meth socially on weekends.
However, it grew “progressively to a daily event” after the untimely death of his mother from cancer and he approached his dealer to see if he could get drugs to sell himself to offset the financial burden.
“He is under no illusions, he is aware that he must go to jail and he is deeply ashamed and embarrassed,” Mr Mellick said.
In his sentencing remarks, Justice James Henry said the scale of the offending suggested a “prolonged greed” rather than desperation.
“He doesn’t appear to be hopelessly drug-addled and was running a successful business while he was running a successful illegal business.
“You made the deliberate choice to pour wholesale amounts of this wicked drug into the Cairns community not just on a couple occasions but over a sustained basis for eight months.
“You obviously let your greedy desire for the easy profit that activity could deliver to you, cause you to conclude that it was worth the risk to you and your very young family of a very serious term of imprisonment.”
Mr Wegner was arrested after police stopped his car after leaving a clients residence where small quantities of drugs were located in his car on January 7.
Ms Kelso said he came to the attention of police as a “side hustle” while they were investigating another man who was purchasing methylamphetamine from Mr Wegner’s client.
On investigation of Mr Wegner’s phone after his arrest police uncovered an ongoing relationship and messages to Mr Wegner's supplier.
The Crown submitted that Mr Wegner was selling his client ounces of methylamphetamine for a sum of $9000.
“Figures identified the client owed Mr Wegner a sum of $186,000, the equivalent of having supplied 20 ounces of methylamphetamine, and a figure paid to Mr Wegner that equalled an additional 23 ounces [worth around $205,000] between May 23 to 13 September 2022.”
Messages found on an encryption app found Mr Wegner’s dealings with a person, who could only be identified by the codename ‘Epifanio2.0’, who began supplying him with drugs which were being transported to Cairns from Brisbane.
“The messages between ‘Epifanio’ and the defendant show that from the 25th of November 2022 to when he was arrested on the 7th of January 2023, Epifanio supplied in early December half a kilo of Methylamphetamine to the accused, a quarter of a kilogram just before Christmas, and on the weekend Mr Wegner was arrested he was expecting another half a kilogram,” Ms Kelso told the court.
Mr Wegner was previously supplied by another person only known as ‘Build’.
The Crown asserted that Mr Wegner, by a conservative low-end estimate, could have made a profit of at least $30,000 per month or just shy of $250’000 during the eight months of the trafficking operation.
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Originally published as Gordonvale tradie, Jack Robert Werner Wegner, sentenced for trafficking methamphetamine
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