Police raided Mark Balsillie’s Melbourne apartment and seized 127g of white powder hidden under a cereal packet

A former Mongols sergeant at arms has pleaded guilty to trafficking drugs after cops found cocaine stuffed in a box of Just Right cereal.

Mark Balsillie outside court on Friday. Picture: David Crosling

Ex-Mongols sergeant at arms Mark Balsillie is hoping to trade prison greens for a wedding suit as a court heard his new love had brought him back from the brink.

The 37-year-old, who wears the name of his wife-to-be in tattoos across his knuckles, ‘P-A-R-I-S’, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and possessing drugs of dependence after cops found cocaine stuffed in a box of Just Right cereal.

Police were tapping the then-Mongol’s phone for six months before they raided his Melbourne apartment on July 31, 2020, seizing 127g of white powder hidden under a cereal packet, ceramic plates with white powder and a $20 note and Rebel card, and syringes filled with growth hormone and testosterone.

At the time, documents show he was snorting up to 2g of cocaine a day, with his barrister Ian Hill QC telling the County Court on Friday that he was living the “relatively unsettled, reckless lifestyle of a single man”.

Mark Balsillie with bikie Toby Mitchell.

His client – dressed fashionably for online court in a black Burberry coat – was taking the drugs for pain management, Mr Hill said, because he’d been shot seven times in the arms, legs and stomach in October, 2017.

“It is in part the reason why he was self medicating, using cocaine, using the testosterone and human growth hormone to try and recover from his wounds,” Mr Hill said.

But his life had turned around since meeting his new partner, Paris Vasiljevic, and he was now off drugs, removed from the Mongols and employed.

“A lot of that can be laid down to the fact that he has now formed … a stable relationship with a law abiding and responsible woman to whom he is engaged and who he plans to marry if free to do so in November of this year,” Mr Hill told the court.

“Life for him is good and he is working at it.”

His lawyer asked he be handed a community correction order instead of jail time.

Mark Balsillie (middle) with Jake King (left) and Toby Mitchell. Picture: Instagram/TheTobyMitchell

That was despite him having refused a similar order in the past, getting locked up for nine months after the then-Comancheros “foot soldier” blackmailed a “gentleman who was not involved with the club”.

But thanks to his changed background, outlook on life and desire to marry, Mr Hill said he would “readily accept a community corrections order if offered and any condition imposed”.

Prosecutor Matt Cookson didn’t oppose a community corrections order, with drug and mental health conditions.

But Judge David Brookes seemed unconvinced, instead replying that he would “consider it”.

“Giving no guarantees at this stage of course,” His Honour said.

Mr Balsillie will be sentenced on August 12.