Avondale Heights meth mule Pantelis Lambrou busted after cop traffic stop

An Avondale Heights drug trafficker with a heart of gold busted on the road with a stack of meth claimed his racket was a “one-off” favor for a dealer.

Pantelis Lambrou was jailed for trafficking meth. Generic/iStock.

An Avondale Heights man has claimed he was transporting ice for his drug dealer as a one-off on the night police happened to pull him over.

Pantelis Lambrou, 34, was sentenced to a minimum of 10 months’ jail at the County Court on Thursday, January 21, having pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking methamphetamine in a commercial quantity.

Lambrou was found to have about 360g of the drug in parcels in his car when police stopped him driving through North Melbourne just after midnight on August 19, 2019.

Officers pulled him over after noticing an issue with the registration of the Lexus he was driving and searched the car after he couldn’t tell them who owned it.

The court heard Lambrou ran from police when they went to search a bag in his car and was arrested a short distance away.

An ice pipe, a set of scales and $650 cash were found in the car with the drugs.

The court heard the heavy ice user claimed he had just been to purchase $700 of the drug from his dealer for himself and others when the dealer had offered to give him the drugs for free if he transferred the parcels across Melbourne.

Judge Michael Bourke said he did not find the explanation likely, but noted no evidence had been found of Lambrou being involved with dealing drugs on any other occasion.

“Nevertheless, you were trafficking a commercial quantity of a valuable, dangerous, damaging drug,” Judge Bourke said.

The court heard Lambrou worked in administration for Clean Earth Services and had formerly worked for ANZ and a Prahran gym.

It was heard he had been using drugs since he was 20 when he caused a crash which ended in a death and serious injury, and suffered from PTSD and stimulant use disorder.

But the court heard Lambrou had spent months in drug rehabilitation since being caught dealing and had been drug-free in the community since July.

Judge Bourke said Lambrou had genuine prospects of rehabilitation and noted the benefit of his plea.

However, he said the principle of deterring other offenders was particularly important in sentencing.

Lambrou was ordered to a maximum of two years ‘and four months’ jail, having already served 174 days.

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