STOPPED in a rest area near the Hawkesbury Bridge with nearly 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine concealed in the boot of his BMW, drug dealer Rodney Grills told a mate he better get back on the road.
"The missus will be stressing, thinking I got f---ing pinched," Grills, 41, told the man who accompanied him on the "dead drop" drug pickup at Mascot on August 14 last year.
Grills thought he had been careful, switching cars in case the police were following him.
He had even boasted a week earlier that he had "never been pinched coming home from Sydney".
But that streak was about to come to an end.
Grills got back on the M1 and headed north towards Farley, but he wouldn't make it home.
Police had been tracking his movements and listening to his every conversation for months and had heard Grills planning the dead drop and then talking about the "two and a half kilo" in his boot.
And so when he was nearly home, police swooped, pulling him over and searching the concealed compartments in the boot of his BMW.
Inside were three large vacuum sealed bags containing a total of 2.4kg of methamphetamine with a purity of about 80 per cent.
Grills claimed he had no knowledge of how the methamphetamine got into his car, but in reality his worst fear had been realised; he had been "pinched" with a large commercial quantity of methamphetamine and was facing a maximum of life in jail.
And that wasn't all, before the massive haul of meth in the boot, police had been building a case against Grills, watching and listening as he supplied quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine to customers across the Hunter and Central Coast between April and August last year.
He had also made another trip to Sydney on August 4 when he delivered half a kilogram of cocaine and $21,000 to an unknown person, the drugs and cash wiping a total of $150,000 off a debt he owed.
Grills appeared in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday via audio visual link from jail where he pleaded guilty to supplying a large commercial quantity of methamphetamine, supplying a commercial quantity of cocaine and two counts of supplying prohibited drugs on an ongoing basis.
Grills will next appear in Newcastle District Court in August to get a sentence date.
Grills has a history of supplying drugs and possessing weapons and in 2014 he was jailed for a maximum of eight years after police raided his home at Kurri Kurri.
This time around, police began monitoring his telephone and conducting surveillance on his car after discovering he was using encrypted messaging platforms to supply ice and cocaine.
He was above a street level dealer and exchanged ounces for tens of thousands of dollars, according to court documents.
Throughout April and May, police listened as Grills negotiated the supply of drugs and travelled to Forster, Cessnock, Kurri Kurri, Raymond Terrace, Somersby and Sydney to keep his customers happy.
But they were waiting and listening for the big score and when Grills headed to Mascot early one morning in August, the wheels were in motion to bring his operation to a close.
Grills didn't know it, but by midday he would be back behind bars.
