New book tells inside story of Victoria Police operation to rid Wangaratta of ice dealers
THE story of how three evil drug dealers exported misery from Wangaratta is revealed in a new book by a member of the team who cleaned up the town during a six-year Victoria Police operation.
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ICE queens Jessica “Shorty” Short and Jessica Fogarty came into their own after violent drug gang boss Aaron Dalton was nabbed by police.
The two Jessicas preyed on the thousands of ice addicts Dalton helped create; initially working together and then separately after the young women fell out.
All three syndicate bosses used Wangaratta as their base to traffic ice around northeast Victoria and over the border into southern New South Wales.
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Short, Fogarty and Dalton each played major roles in ensuring Victoria’s ice problem went from being a relatively small one in 2012 to plague proportions in just a few short years.
They were among the dealers the then Australian Crime Commission boss Chris Dawson was talking about when he told the Herald Sun in 2014 that ice was “ruining lives, ripping apart families and friendships and wrecking careers”.
“We’re intentionally using the term pandemic in terms of ice,” he said.
“It’s akin to the cocaine crack problem in the USA.”
Short, Fogarty and Dalton used violence and standover tactics to maintain control over their dealers and ensure those they dealt ice to paid their debts.
A recruiting ploy used by all three was to offer young and impressionable sons and daughters of respectable rural families the chance to get rich quick by joining their syndicates.
More than a hundred of them — including feared ringleaders Short, Fogarty and Dalton — were arrested during a six-year Victoria Police blitz that cleaned up Wangaratta.
ANDREW RULE: Ice war claiming all kinds of victims
Dalton, 35, — who often hid his drug stash by burying it in the garden of his unsuspecting and innocent grandmother — pleaded guilty to trafficking in commercial quantities of ice and ecstasy, recklessly causing serious injury, false imprisonment, reckless conduct endangering a serious injury, affray and arson. He was jailed in 2014 for nine years and ordered to serve a minimum of six and a half.
Short, 26, — who used TAB wagering accounts to launder drug money — pleaded guilty to trafficking ice and five other offences, including possession of prohibited weapons charges and dealing with the proceeds of crime. She was jailed in 2016 for eight and a half years and ordered to serve a minimum of five and a half. She appealed and had her sentence reduced to six years and ten months with a non-parole period of four years and three months.
Jessica Fogarty, 28, — who continued drug dealing from her hospital bed after giving birth to her first child in June 2014 — pleaded guilty to trafficking ice and cocaine, handling stolen goods, burglary, theft and dealing with the proceeds of crime. She was jailed in 2016 for seven years and ordered to serve at least four and a half.
Detective leading senior constable Jason Bray was a member of the team involved in what Victoria Police hails as one of its most successful operations, during which the multimillion-dollar ice syndicates run by Dalton, Short and Fogarty, were smashed.
He has written a book about it called Ice Nation, which is being published this month.
It tells the inside story of how the force successfully tackled Wangaratta’s ice plague.
The book also contains a chapter parents should get their children to read as it paints a chilling picture of how easy it is to get hooked on ice.
“It will destroy your life and the lives of the people you love,” the Ice Nation chapter says.
“Look around at the many addicts who have lost their way. Brilliant people are now useless without the drug. They can’t function without ice yet they’ll claim to have full control over the drug and their own use.
“Ice is a chemically manufactured drug made from poisons. The poisons used to make it change randomly, depending largely upon their availability and costs.
“If you are an ice user, you have no control over what poison enters your body. You place a lot of faith in the hands of manufacturers, most of who are not qualified and are backyard chemists and addicts themselves.
“The poisons entering your body are designed to alter the way you think and feel. If you think you have full control over the way your mind thinks and your body feels when using ice, you’re kidding yourself.
“Ice is a scourge on our society. Its full harmful impact won’t be realised for decades to come.
“At some stage, there will be a generation of people that used ice in their younger years. The impact on their mental health as they grow older is yet to be experienced in Australia.
“Investigators spoke with a main member of the Boss’s (Dalton’s) syndicate a few months after their arrest.
“Their only objective was to learn more about ice and why people use the drug. They were also keen for advice on how to stop people from using it.
“The trafficker had never met anyone that didn’t enjoy the effects that ice delivered. They described ice as being an incredibly addictive and likeable drug and said that it was possible to be hooked after just one puff.
“The danger came when young people sampled ice for the first time. Due to the good effects the drug delivered and its addictive qualities, a first-time user was encouraged to continue using from the first puff onwards.
“When sitting in a lounge room amongst a group of friends, a young person with a good upbringing and coming from a respectable family is at as much risk as a child from the wrong side of town when it comes to using ice.
“One member of the group may bring out a pipe and light the ice in front of the gathering. Passing the pipe around the circle of friends and having a quick puff may seem very innocent.
“It takes a strong person to withstand the peer pressure and pass up the offer. This peer pressure is not much different to what their parents experienced when passing around a cigarette behind the school shed many years ago. Except the consequence have the potential to be much worse.
“One tenth of a gram of ice, worth $100, may satisfy the four or five youths sitting around the room.
“The reality is that before long, it won’t be enough to satisfy one person for more than ten minutes. The syndicate member attested to this.
“It’s a dangerous drug and more needs to be done to stop people from taking their first puff. It’s a drug trafficker’s dream drug, users can’t get enough and business is booming.”