Dejan Tomic caught at Melbourne airport with suitcase of cash

Cash and drug detector dogs have sniffed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in a man’s suitcase as he arrived at Melbourne Airport.

A painter caught flying into Melbourne airport with more than $700,000 in cash has been spared a jail stint after “turning his life around”.

Dejan Tomic, of Hampton Park, was identified by a cash and drug detection dog while waiting for his baggage at Melbourne airport on June 28 last year.

The 28-year-old told police he’d just been to Brisbane for a friend’s wedding over the weekend and let them search his bags.

“There’s nothing in there mate, just clothes,” he said.

However inside one suitcase they found nine vacuum-sealed bags containing $699,950 in cash and a further $7850 loose inside his backpack.

Tomic returned to the County Court on Thursday for sentencing after pleading guilty to a charge of dealing with the suspected proceeds of crime on September 15.

The court heard the amount was “grossly out of proportion” to his average income of about $1000 per week as a painter.

In the prosecution statement of facts, prosecutors outlined how a taxi driver had picked Tomic up from his Brisbane hotel earlier that day before being directed to stop at a residential address.

Cash detection dogs discovered more than $700,000 in cash in a painter’s suitcase.

Here he saw an unknown person hand a third suitcase to the man before taking him to the airport.

Tomic’s lawyer had previously explained that his client had incurred significant drug debts following the breakdown of a relationship in 2020.

He said Tomic was approached at the wedding and asked to bring a suitcase back to Melbourne for $5000 and “assured” it did not contain drugs.

Sentencing Tomic, Judge Michael O’Connell said that while this account of the events was “not implausible”, he had nonetheless performed a “trusted and essential task” for organised crime.

“A person who assists in money laundering in the way that you have, performs an important role in the operations of organised crime,” he said.

He said that while the crime was “inherently serious” and would ordinarily justify a jail term, he had been persuaded against it by the “exceptional” effort he’d made towards turning his life around.

“I’m persuaded that placing you in prison environment now would seriously risk undermining, if not destroying, the very real achievements towards your reformation,” he said.

“In my view that is not a risk worth taking.”

Tomic was sentenced to a 14 month term of imprisonment, but was ordered to be released on a recognisance release order.