AS Rodney Grills headed back up the M1 from Sydney, the street value of the methamphetamine hidden in the boot of his BMW was somewhere between $750,000 and $2 million.
But Grills, 41, a prolific drug dealer now caught supplying ice and cocaine four times, claims he was just a middleman, an employee to a supplier up the line and any financial reward was used to either feed his own addiction or "stave off the impact" of a significant drug debt he owed.
He faced a sentence hearing in Newcastle District Court on Wednesday, during which Judge Ian Bourke, SC, was urged to find that Grills was not an "enterprising drug magnet" working autonomously to buy and sell large quantities of ice and cocaine to fund a lavish lifestlye, but was instead forced into that position to repay a drug debt of at least $156,000.
Exactly how much the debt was and how it was incurred was not clear, the court heard.
The issue of his motivation and role in the operation will be crucial in determining how long he spends behind bars when Judge Bourke sentences Grills on Thursday afternoon.
As the Newcastle Herald reported in July, police had been tracking his movements and listening to his every conversation for months and on August 14, 2023 had heard Grills planning the "dead drop" drug pickup at Mascot and then later talking about the "two and a half kilo" in his boot.
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.
When police stopped him, they searched the boot and found three large vacuum sealed bags containing a total of 2.4 kilograms of methamphetamine with a purity of about 80 per cent.
On Wednesday, the court heard the drugs had a potential wholesale value of between $325,000 and $487,000 and a potential street value of $750,000 and $2 million.
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.
Judge Bourke said Grills was serving an intensive correction order for supplying drugs when he again got involved in the criminal underworld.
"In 2021, he was given an ICO for supplying drugs and dealing with the proceeds of crime" Judge Bourke said. "He re-offended during that intensive correction order with another supply offence and then he was given another ICO which is still in operation. "Then these offences were commenced less than six months after he got that ICO."
Grills' defacto partner Charnye Jorjah Tomlinson, 25, who accompanied him to Sydney on August 4 for the cocaine transaction, has pleaded guilty to knowingly taking part in the supply of a commercial quantity of cocaine and will be sentenced in December.
Meanwhile, another man, Ben Hamer, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to his role in the Mascot "dead drop" drug deal during the Newcastle District Court's super callover.
Hamer had driven the BMW down to Sydney on the morning of August 14 and then swapped with Grills for the drive home.
Hamer had pleaded not guilty to supplying a large commercial quantity of methamphetamine, but after negotiations pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of knowingly take part in the supply of a commercial quantity of ice. He will be sentenced in February.
