SYDNEY: An Austrian drug mule has been jailed for attempting to smuggle $4 million worth of amphetamine into Australia in his luggage at Adelaide Airport.
Vienna resident Michael Bortoli was arrested in September 2013 after arriving from Singapore.
The court heard Customs officers found four kilograms of the drug hidden in his baggage after noticing it was unusually heavy.
They X-rayed the bag and found amphetamine valued at up to $4 million – enough to provide 40,000 street deals.
Adelaide’s District Court heard the plot to import the drugs had links to Spain and Africa.
Your role was fundamental to the successful importation and without your involvement the drugs could not have made it to Australia.
Judge Rauf Soulio said Bortoli – who had been promised money which he hoped to spend on a trip to Gambia to see a woman he had met online – felt “duped”.
The court heard Bortoli now feared the woman had contacted him on the advice of a friend of his, who Bortoli said had organised the illegal drug importation and paid for his travel and spending money.
“I accept that you were not the person who was going to substantially profit from this crime and that you were a mere courier, or as your counsel put it, you were a mule,” Judge Soulio told Bortoli.
“However, I note the prosecution submission that your role was fundamental to the successful importation and without your involvement the drugs could not have made it to Australia.”
Bortoli’s flights were paid for by a person in the Ivory Coast, and his Australian visa and accommodation were organised through a travel agency in Spain by an unidentified person.
Judge Soulio said Bortoli, when asked by Customs officers if he was concealing anything in his bag, replied “I go to jail now”.
The court heard Bortoli was unemployed and told police he was visiting Adelaide for 14 days on the recommendation of his friend.
Now sporting a wild mane of hair, a bushy beard and glasses, Bortoli earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of importing a commercial quantity of a controlled drug.
Judge Soulio said the drug was of 80 per cent purity, and Bortoli later “told police you didn’t know there was any illegal substance in your luggage, which goes against your exclamation at the airport”.
Bortoli’s sentence of eight years, and his four-and-a-half year non-parole period, were backdated to the day of his arrest.
