A solicitor who took part in supplying methamphetamine in Albury has been handed a three-year jail term. But Alina Yousif has escaped full-time custody after District Court judge Sean Grant ordered she serve the sentence by way of an intensive corrections order.
The 28-year-old was given the ICO – handed down in a sentence hearing at Griffith, following a trial in Albury – on charges of using a false document to obtain a licence for another person and taking part in a criminal group.
On the charge of taking part in the supply of 55.5 grams of methamphetamine she was placed on a 12-month community corrections order. A jury of seven women and five men found Yousif guilty on all three charges at the conclusion of a one-week trial in late February.
Yousif had been arrested in a police operation targeting drugs linked to the Bandidos MC. Her sentencing comes more than two years after her offending was detected, along with that of her co-accused in what was a specially targeted police operation.
The trial was told how Yousif’s supply charge resulted from her offer of $2000 from her own bank account to meet a shortfall in the $12,000 price of “three ounces” of ice. This, the Crown said, meant Yousif was complicit in supplying the 55 grams of methamphetamine.
The jury heard evidence that surveillance devices showed Yousif counting out money in readiness for another club member to travel to Melbourne to buy the methamphetamine in late 2017. The drugs were uncovered by police as soon as the courier crossed into NSW.
The false document conviction related to Yousif’s role in the use of a fake Indian consulate letter so another club member could obtain a NSW motorcycle rider’s licence. When the head of the “criminal group” – Yousif’s then partner, who cannot be identified for legal reasons – found out a bid to get a licence at Roads and Maritime Services in Albury using a fake Indian licence had failed, he contacted a Sydney forger.
“Mate, can you knock up a letter from the Indian Consular General to say that he’s ridgy-didge?” Yousif then used the letter so the man, who only had a P-licence, could ride a larger capacity machine in the Bandidos’ annual run.
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Source: The Border Mail by Nigel McNay