By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A drug trafficking dad arrested with more than $58,000 cash in a Springvale Bunnings car park has been jailed for up to nine years.
Dylan Whitfield, 30, pleaded guilty at the County Court of Victoria to trafficking commercial quantities of ice and 1,4-butanediol as well as trafficking ecstasy, burglary and proceeds of crime.
Whitfield had been reported behaving erratically, nearly being hit by a car in the Bunnings car park during the afternoon in late 2020.
Police found him with three phones and $1250 cash.
Inside the Mercedes Benz he had been driving while disqualified, police found bundles of cash and a small bag of ice.
Judge Claire Quin said Whitfield was a “middle-man” in a drug-trafficking network, buying “significant” amounts of ice from convicted associate Alexander Orlov and repackaging them to sale to his own clients.
Orlov has been jailed up to 16 years for his more leading role.
Whitfield was one of Orlov’s “primary customers” and in contact on a daily basis. Police detected transactions totalling at least 840 grams of drugs.
In April 2020, police raided an Air BnB apartment in South Yarra hired by Whitfield.
Police found 4.6 litres of 1,4-butandediol, a safe with bagged-up ecstasy pills as well as an array of drug-preparing equipment linked to the accused.
In June that year, Whitfield and an unknown male stole parcels and attempted to open a key safe in a apartment block’s mail room in Clayton.
Raised in Mulgrave, Whitfield failed to complete an electrician apprenticeship due to drug addiction, Judge Quin noted.
He’d used an array of drugs, including meth from the age of 19.
The latest trafficking occurred shortly after his release from jail, and while on bail.
Whitfield submitted that he had been unable to find work at the time due to the Covid pandemic.
Judge Quin noted his early guilty plea, family support, and abstinence from drugs while in custody.
His offending was a “significant step-up” in criminality from his previous drug, dishonesty and weapons offences.
Whitfield was jailed up to nine years and one month, with a non-parole period of six-and-a-half years.
His term included 681 days in pre-sentence custody.
He was disqualified from driving for two years.
