Dying 'Breaking Bad' drug smuggler jailed for 19 years
A terminally ill man has been jailed for more than 19 years over a drug importation ring likened to the television show Breaking Bad.
Adelaide man Anthony John Scott was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition before he smuggled $60m worth of methamphetamine into Australia.
Scott ran a paving and stone importation business when he smuggled more than 47kg of the drug and 1300 pseudoephedrine tablets between November 2015 and January 2016.
The 45-year-old father-of-five was arrested after customs officials searched him on his return to Adelaide from Bali.
During the search they found the tablets.
Scott was placed under surveillance, and in a separate search the Australian Federal Police found drugs hidden in sealed bags, sprinkled with pepper, inside a shipping container in Perth.
The case has been likened to the story of Walter White in the television show Breaking Bad.
In the hit series, cancer-suffering White becomes a drug dealer in order to provide for his family after death.
Scotts lawyer Mark Griffin QC said he had been told he had one year to live and was in a “fog of distress” before making the decision to import drugs,” Adelaide Advertiser reports.
Judge Rauf Soulio was asked to show Scott mercy and that he be allowed to serve his sentence in home detention.
On Friday Judge Soulio ruled Scott’s offence was too serious for home detention, describing his drug plot as “deluded” with the potential to ruin many lives.
Scott had suffered four heart attacks relating to methamphetamine use.
Prosecutors called for a lengthy jail-term despite Scott’s health problems.
He was jailed for 19 years and three months, with a non-parole period of ten years and eight months.
The sentence was backdated to January 2016 - the time of his arrest.
