Operation Ironside drug courier Stuart Farquhar sentenced over heroin stash, thanks judge
See inside the bedroom of an Operation Ironside drug courier busted with a massive amount of heroin in the Adelaide Hills – who then thanked a judge for his jail time.
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A drug courier caught with more heroin in his bedroom than is normally seized in South Australia in an entire year has thanked a District Court judge for showing mercy in his sentence.
Stuart Farquhar, 31, was among dozens of people arrested on June 7 last year as part of Operation Ironside and became one of the first to plead guilty to major drug trafficking charges.
Earlier this month Judge Paul Cuthbertson sentenced Farquhar to four years, six months and 19 days in prison with a non-parole period of three years, seven months and 22 days.
A teary Farquhar thanked Judge Cuthbertson for the sentence in front of a court full of his family and friends.
Around 5.40am on June 7, 2021, police raided Farquhar’s Mount Barker home.
As police entered the house they saw a door open and Farquhar peer out at before closing the door again.
As police burst through his bedroom door Farquhar was lying on his bed.
As police searched the house Farquhar became “noticeably distressed and began breathing heavily”.
In a locked metal container in his bedroom police found two Coles bags with bags of crystals.
All up Farquhar had 2.625kg of methamphetamine and 674g of heroin in his bedroom.
To put that in perspective, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission stated in the 2019-20 Illicit Drug Data Report a total of 595g of heroin had been seized in all SA that year.
Farquhar did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody.
Prosecutors later laid another set of charges stemming from an analysis of messages recovered from the encrypted AN0M app, which was being monitored by police.
Farquhar had one of the phones, and messages from the device showed he had purchased a van fitted with hidden compartments for drugs and tainted cash.
Court documents released to The Advertiser show Farquhar was part of a much larger syndicate shipping large amounts of methamphetamine to Adelaide where it would be split into smaller batches and then adulterated before being onsold.
Farquhar met a truck on January 4, 2021, and swapped $37,500 cash for 20kg of methamphetamine.
That same day he dropped 5kg of the drug to a member of the syndicate and over the following weeks distributed the other batches.
On January 24, he again met a truck and this time returned with 10kg of methamphetamine.
He split that up into smaller batches and distributed to other members of the syndicate.
Farquhar was also involved in the retrieval of 5kg of “brown heroin” – named after the colour of the powder that typically has its origins in southwest Asia – in November and December 2020.
However, the syndicate was unable to sell the drug and it was returned to the supplier.
On January 13, 2021, a subset of the larger syndicate sourced 1.5kg of “white heroin”, which was sold throughout January and March.
Farquhar’s job was to store the drug and break it down into smaller portions.
Shortly before the raid on June 7, Farquhar sent a photo showing he had 674g of the drug left.
Other alleged members of the syndicate have yet to enter pleas to charges of drug trafficking, but are expected to take the matter to trial.
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