The man, aged in his 60s, who has interim name suppression while further charges he faces are yet to be resolved, was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court today after earlier pleading guilty to ten charges.
Judge June Jelas sentenced the defendant to 22 months’ imprisonment.
Police’s “Operation Rubus” began at the start of March last year when a judge granted search warrants for the defendant’s property.
While officers pulled the man over, another unit raided his Dunedin home.
In the car they found two cell phones and a police scanner but they hit the jackpot when searching the four-bedroom house.
In a wooden chest seat there was a loaded sawn-off .22 bolt-action rifle, complete with a silencer, and another cut-down semi-automatic shotgun, both wrapped in blankets.
After a sweep of the property, police turned up 808 rounds of ammunition.
There was weaponry hidden throughout the man’s house, court documents revealed.
Four tasers, two extendable batons, a slug-gun rifle, two blank-firing pistols, two BB pistols, an air pistol, an imitation AK47 assault rifle and pepper spray were among the arsenal.
The defendant was clearly alive to the threat of being caught.
One camera was installed high on the house and others had been placed on posts out the front, at the gate and by the front door – all feeding to a hard drive in the man’s bedroom.
The court heard the defendant also had a police scanner hanging directly over his bed.
The reason for the extensive security measures soon became clear.
Officers found three sets of digital scales – all of which later tested positive for methamphetamine residue – as well as numerous zip-lock bags and rubber bands consistent with drug-dealing.
And it appeared business was booming.
A total of $20,555 cash was found during the execution of the search warrant.
When the defendant’s digital devices were analysed, it shed further light on the origin of the cash haul.
“Messages, videos and photographs were discovered throughout both cell phones clearly attributing both possession and ongoing use to the defendant,” police said.
The man referred to two different types of meth in his communications, one as “salt and vinegar” because of its aroma, and one as “green tea”, thought to be due to the method of importation in green-tea packaging.
He told one customer he had “premium indoor skunk” and on occasions described his class-A drugs as “top quality”.
One video found by forensic analysts was especially damning.
It showed the defendant sitting at his kitchen table, instructing a 45-year-old associate to test his methamphetamine.
The man could be seen smoking the drug in a glass pipe and the pair commented on its quality.
Today, Crown prosecutor Zoe Kellam said she accepted the defendant had a methamphetamine addiction, but the commercial aspect of the offending could not be ignored.
Judge Jelas said the defendant's methamphetamine dealing was low-level to support his own addiction.
The combination of firearms and drugs was concerning, the judge said, and noted one weapon was loaded and they were both easily accessible to the defendant.
The defendant told a probation officer he had the guns for protection from people who had threatened him.
The defendant was already serving a prison sentence for other drug-related offending, and the judge had to take that into account when imposing the cumulative sentence.
Judge Jelas made the defendant subject to a Firearms Prohibition Order, which prohibits him from using, accessing or being around firearms for up to 10 years.
The judge ordered the firearms, ammunition, drugs and paraphernalia be destroyed.
