Duh !
We’d really like to know what the novel was…
The ABC reports
An Adelaide man has been acquitted of trafficking drugs because police secretly replaced cocaine hidden in a hollowed-out novel with icing sugar before the accused collected the item.
Key points:
- A parcel sent from the UK to suburban Adelaide in 2019 was found to contain cocaine concealed in a novel
- The drug was switched with icing sugar before the accused collected it
- A judge found he had “no case to answer”
Nathan John Ralph was charged after Australian Border Force (ABF) officers detected an “anomaly” in a parcel posted from the UK in January 2019.
The parcel was addressed to a unit owned by the accused but leased to his father on the Esplanade at Seacliff in Adelaide’s south, and was intercepted by local police following a tip-off from ABF.
Inside the parcel was a novel, and inside the novel was about 99 grams of cocaine.
Mr Ralph faced South Australia’s District Court charged with one count of trafficking a controlled drug but was acquitted by Judge Timothy Heffernan.
In a judgement handed down earlier this month, Judge Heffernan found the accused never came into contact with the illicit drug, which had been substituted by police with icing sugar.
“A presumptive test, later confirmed by forensic analysis, suggested that the powder was cocaine.
“The police arranged for the cocaine, which weighed about 99g, to be substituted with an inert substance, icing sugar.”
An undercover officer then delivered the reconstructed parcel to the man’s address on February 12, 2019, and police conducting surveillance of the property noticed the man, who was driving a truck, come to collect it a short time later.
Mr Ralph was then tracked to the Glen Osmond Market, where he was arrested that afternoon.
Read more at. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-18/drug-acquittal-after-police-switched-cocaine-with-icing-sugar/100227346
