Truckie mule learns fate over $5.25m haul

A truckie was caught driving $5.25m across the border stashed behind a fake wall of the rig in exchange for cheap cocaine.

A truck driver who turned cross-border mule for drug dealers in exchange for cheap cocaine has been spared jail despite hauling $5.25m in proceeds of crime in a secret compartment of his rig.

Michele Donato, 49, was placed on a two-year community correction order at Victoria’s County Court on Friday – 19 months after police swooped on his truck along Dorcas St in Southbank as part of an AN0M sting.

Echo task force investigators had been following the South Australian father of two as he drove the hundreds of kilometres from Adelaide to Melbourne, before intercepting him at 9.38pm on December 29, 2020.

When they told Donato they had a warrant to search the truck, and asked if they would find anything, he replied he had “personal stuff” in the cabin and pointed to his nose.

Asked to clarify what he meant, he said: “Coke”.

Two plastic containers in a small box were found to contain 4.7g of cocaine.

Police then removed screws in the wall separating the rear of the truck from the driver’s cabin and uncovered a secret compartment with 11 brown cardboard boxes stacked up.

Inside the boxes – each sealed with tape and labelled “Ingham’s frozen poultry” – was a total of $5.25m in cash.

Michele Donato was stopped with the $5.25m after crossing the border from South Australia.

Donato, from the Adelaide suburb of Tranmere, pleaded guilty to two charges: possessing a drug of dependence and dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.

County Court judge Peter Rozen accepted Donato knew he was carrying “something unlawful” but was not aware of what it was.

“It appears tolerably clear that the people who used you to transport the money to Melbourne were engaged in high-level criminal activity,” Judge Rozen said.

“You knew that the people who asked you to drive to Melbourne were drug dealers, because they were providing your cocaine at cost price in return for your transport services.”

Judge Rozen said he must impose a sentence that would deter others — and Donato — from “engaging in drug-related crime for profit”.

The case was hidden inside boxes labelled as poultry.

The fake wall inside Donato’s truck.

The prosecution pushed for a jail term, but after giving “anxious consideration” to Donato’s case, Judge Rozen said he found a community-based order was suitable.

He said a jail term would be “quite counter productive” for Donato’s rehabilitation.

“I have concluded that there is little to be gained for either you or the community in sending you to jail,” he told Rozen.

The court heard Donato had a drug addiction, having started using cannabis from age 13 before turning to cocaine later in life as it “helped to counter (his) fluctuating moods”.

“There is clearly a close link between your substance abuse and your offending,” Judge Rozen said.

As part of the CCO, he ordered the first-time offender to undergo regular drug testing and treatment, as well as perform 200 hours of unpaid community work.

He warned him if he did not comply he could face jail.

Donato will return to court for Judge Rozen to check on his progress in October.

He is one of the first to be sentenced in Victoria over Operation Ironside’s global sting where police designed the encrypted AN0M app which was then used by criminals who thought their discussions couldn’t be tracked.

Six months after the Donato bust, raids were held across the world, with police detaining and charging outlaw motorcycle gang members and Mafia-linked figures.