Men found guilty of importing and drug trafficking charges

Two men arrested after an undercover sting and a police raid in Launceston have been found guilty of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

TWO men arrested after an undercover sting and a police raid in Launceston have been found guilty of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

Toby John Della Valle, 29, and Shea Alex Gibbling, 35, now face prison sentences after a jury took less than three hours to find them guilty of bringing nearly a kilogram of MDMA into the country from Spain.

The pair had pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court in Launceston to the importation charge, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and also contested individual charges of trafficking a marketable quantity of a controlled drug.

The latter charges related to MDMA found concealed in a bedroom and roof space of the West Tamar Highway property that was raided by police in October 2017, minutes after an undercover police officer posing as a postman delivered the package from which Australian Border Force had removed MDMA as it entered Australia.

Della Valle and Gibbling were on Monday convicted of both charges.

Prosecutors argued they had formed a joint criminal enterprise and were working together to import the drugs. When the Riverside property was raided, Della Valle falsely claimed his name was “Dean Emerson”.

During the trial, Della Valle told the court he was merely “helping a mate” as he tracked the parcel while it was in transit from Spain, but he declined to reveal who that friend was.

Gibbling told the court he did not know the parcel contained drugs when he accepted delivery of it and said he handed it to Della Valle immediately upon re-entering the house.

”In my submission, the jury has rejected these propositions,” Commonwealth prosecutor Garth Stevens told the court, calling for both men to be sentenced to immediate jail terms to send a message of deterrence.

Defence counsel Evan Hughes, for Della Valle, said his client had lived an “industrious” life and had “excellent prospects for rehabilitation”, having previously contributed to social causes including a “Streetsmart Handbook” given to school students in Western Australia, designed to prepare them for young adulthood.

Gibbling’s lawyer Fran McCracken said he would lose his job as a result of the conviction and that his prospects of finding work in the health science field, which he was studying at the time of his arrest, were now effectively over.

Justice Brian Martin adjourned the case to Tuesday for sentencing.