How a drug dealer got bust by ‘undercover’ postman
A drug dealer was bust after signing for 36 000 ecstasy pills.
A sneaky undercover operation took place in Dublin, Ireland in a ‘pass the (ecstasy) parcel’ rouse which led to the arrest of 49-year old Philip Noonan.
A parcel from Germany addressed to Noonan was flagged by Irish customs after the X-ray machine uncovered an anomaly, with the bag containing 18 vacuum-packed bags of 36 000 blue ecstasy pills.
The police and the Postal Service then worked together to set up a delivery bust.An officer of the Garda, Republic of Ireland’s police force, went undercover as a postman by dressing up in uniform and borrowing a post van to deliver the package of ecstasy pills to Noonan in Dublin.
Guilty by signature
Unsuspecting Noonan signed for the package, leading to his arrest a few minutes later.
Initially he claimed to have no knowledge of the contents within the package and that he ‘wasn’t expecting a delivery’ but later plead guilty to drug possession with intent for sale or supply of drugs.
James Dwyer BL, Noonan’s defence barrister, claimed that his client was a chronic alcoholic who had worked infrequently after losing his truck driver’s license following a drink driving conviction.
Dwyer said: “He was an important cog in the machine of drug-trafficking, but he wasn’t the man who was the owner of the drugs” and he was not “living a lavish lifestyle”.
Noonan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, after Judge Martin Nolan accepted that he was not the owner of the drugs, but rather a cog in the drug trafficking wheel.
“This was serious drug-dealing even though he didn’t profit to a great degree,” said Judge Nolan. That’s one less cog in the drug dealer wheel.
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