A South Australia woman who attempted to import a border controlled substance used for producing the drug ice, via airmail from India has been found guilty and will be sentenced in July.
Federal investigators questioned Casey Lee Singh after they examined a parcel on its arrival in Sydney and found 316 grams of pure ephedrine - a precursor used to manufacture methamphetamine - hidden inside five orthopaedic sandals sent from New Delhi.
While the parcel had her name on it, the delivery address on it was of her next door neighbour.
The officers of Australian Border Force searched Ms Singh’s Adelaide home a few days later and found items used in drug use and manufacturing, including some hydrochloric acid and pH strips in the roof cavity above her bedroom and a glass condenser. Investigators also found some messages from her Facebook account that indicated her interest in illicit drugs, specifically methylamphetamine.
However, no evidence was found to prove she ordered or tracked the parcel from India. Her bank accounts also didn’t show any large sum of money paid or received for drugs. Neither could the officers recover any items commonly linked with illicit sale of drugs, such as cash, resealable plastic bags, cutting agent or unexplained wealth.
The court was told that when officers questioned her neighbour who lived on the address mentioned on the parcel, she said that Ms Singh had enquired from her whether any parcel had arrived for her from India.
The neighbour said she had received parcels meant for Ms Singh at her home on previous two occasions as well. She said when she queried Ms Singh as to why she hadn’t given the correct address to the sender despite months since the last parcel, she said Ms Singh said: “Yes, but my husband’s relatives live in India in a rural area and, you know, it’s very hard to get in touch with them.”
The neighbour later elaborated that Ms Singh had said: “my husband’s relatives live in a rural area in India and they’re not on the phone, so it’s very hard to get in touch with them.”
However, the defence disputed that Ms Singh said anything about the parcel coming from India or that it was being sent by her husband’s relatives. Her lawyers also claimed that she did not know that the parcel contained ephedrine.
The prosecution told the court that by taking the steps of going to her neighbour and enquiring about the parcel, Ms Singh had attempted to deal with the ephedrine and intended to import it.
After the prosecutor mentioned the drugs paraphernalia recovered from Ms Singh’s home in his opening address to the jury at the District Court, the defence counsel sought to have it declared a mistrial, on the basis that the prosecution’s description of that evidence suggested that Ms Singh was a bad person and therefore more likely to have committed the offence she was charged for.
However, the application for mistrial was dismissed and Ms Singh was found guilty at the end of the trial by a unanimous jury verdict in October last year.
She appealed against the decision in the Supreme Court of South Australia which found that despite the “gaps or absences in the evidence” the significance of the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to sustain the finding that Ms Singh was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Supreme Court dismissed her appeal on 17 May and she will be sentenced at the District Court on 17 July.
