A Dunedin man who became entangled in a plan to collect $100,000 of methamphetamine has been locked up for nearly three years.
Matthew James Oxley (35) was the last of a trio to be sentenced in the Dunedin District Court yesterday on charges of attempting to take possession of the class-A drug for supply and offering to supply it.
Last week, 40-year-old Reagan Heke was jailed for three years and four months while his counterpart 56-year-old Paul Milligan received 10 and a-half months’ home detention.
The trio came to police attention between May and July 2021.
Oxley would source large quantities of meth, often out of town, the court heard.
He would then break the haul down to sell in smaller quantities.
Intercepted conversations revealed Oxley was in contact with 12 buyers to whom he made 36 offers to supply.
The amount the defendant actually sold was unknown but police estimated it could have been as much as 28g.
In June that year, Oxley also came involved in a desperate bid to recover a parcel of methamphetamine, which — unbeknown to him — had been imported from Nasgpur, India.
The shipment was addressed to a fictitious person and bound for a house on a quiet street in the suburb of Kenmure — a "catcher address" that could not be traced to those involved in the plot.
The package made it all the way to a Dunedin courier firm before Customs swooped.
On the delivery date there was a flurry of calls between Heke and Oxley. Oxley, who was to be paid 10g of meth for his assistance, made repeated calls to the courier company in the ensuing days, giving fake names and contact numbers when asked.
Three hundred grams of the drug had been stashed inside a used computer hard-drive tower, secured with thick brown packing tape, the court heard.
It had a potential street value of $107,000, police said.
Oxley was bailed after first being arrested but continued to rack up charges.
After missing a court date in May last year he was pulled over by police who found glass pipes and ammunition in his car.
Two months later he was arrested at his Evansdale address for breaching bail and on searching the sleep-out in which he was staying officers found a sawn-off shotgun, 12-gauge rounds and more meth pipes.
"All the offending ... appears to have been centred on living a life, certainly in more recent times, aimed towards sustaining that addiction by whatever means," counsel Brian Kilkelly said.
Oxley was now determined to face his drug problem and had made inquiries about residential rehabilitation programmes in Dunedin and Blenheim.
On 13 charges, Judge Michael Turner jailed the defendant for two years and 11 months.
