Accused speed dealer stashed money in his underwear, Hobart court told
A Hobart electrician has denied trafficking speed after allegedly being caught with money stuffed in his underwear and nearly 55 grams of the drug.
Fabian James Ackerley Trueman, 28, from Blackman's Bay, is accused of trafficking in methylamphetamine between September 2010 and March 2011.
Hobart Supreme Court was told police found 54.8 grams of methylamphetamine in the footwell of the passenger seat of Trueman's work van in Hobart in January 2011.
Prosecutor Jackie Hartnett said the amount was evidence of trafficking.
"There was too much of it and it was too valuable to be otherwise," she said.
Ms Hartnett said a search of Trueman when the van was stopped had located $2,700 cash in his underwear.
It is alleged Trueman was sourcing the drug from an area near Nugent in southern Tasmania.
The court heard Trueman had been part of a covert police investigation, which included the interception of a home phone belonging to a Royden Swan and Emma Nash at Nugent.
Ms Hartnett told the court Trueman made 15 calls to that home phone leading up to police searching his van, including the day before the interception.
It was also alleged those were "business calls" made from various public phone boxes in which Trueman used a code to refer to sourcing speed.
"What they're talking about is sourcing and arranging methylamphetamine," Ms Hartnett told the court.
"They don't use the word 'speed' or 'methylamphetamine', but you can clearly find that's what they were discussing."
Ms Hartnett said a GPS tracking device was attached to Trueman's van, which showed the vehicle had often travelled to an off-road bush area at Nugent after a phone call to the Swan-Nash residence.
It was alleged the area was a preparation or collection area for methylamphetamine.
Defence lawyer Wayne Olding urged the jury to keep an open mind about what they would hear during the trial.
"That was the only time methylamphetamine was found anywhere in anything of my client's," he said, referring to the police interception of Trueman's van.
"The evidence will show there's a plausible alternative theory."
Mr Olding said the defence case would revolve around steroids, which were found at Trueman's house and the Swan-Nash property.
