NEWS: Daily Mercury - 25/09/07 'Call register from dealer's phone snares customers'

[lil angel15]

Call register from dealer's phone snares customers
25.09.2007

MOBILE phones have become the new weapon in the fight against Mackay's hideous drug trade.

Seven people faced court on drug offences yesterday after detectives searched the "call register" of a known dealer's mobile phone.

Detectives checked details of callers with telephone companies, found the residential addresses of the owners, and executed search warrants on them on August 29.

A short video-clip image on a mobile phone also resulted in two 21-year-old women being charged because they filmed themselves inhaling crushed ecstasy up their noses at an Airlie Beach nightclub.

"Mobile phones have certainly been a boon for the prosecution," Magistrate Ross Risson remarked.
Of the seven people who faced court yesterday, the most bizarre case was that of Emma Louise Fischer, 21, and Tara Jay Loane, 21, who both pleaded guilty to two charges of unlawfully possessing ecstasy.

After obtaining the residential address of the two women, police executed a search warrant on an Evan Street house.

In the house they found that one of the women had a mobile phone with images of the two girls inhaling ecstasy.

They filmed themselves sniffing the drug at Magnums nightclub at Airlie Beach.

They both told detectives they purchased an ecstasy tablet, crushed it up and sniffed it "for something different".

The images showed them inhaling white powder.

The court heard how one drug dealer sold ecstasy tablets for about six months, charging $40 or $50 a tablet.

All of the drug arrests came from information in the dealer's mobile phone.

People who appeared in court yesterday, and who all pleaded guilty to ecstasy charges, were: Emma Louise Fischer, 21, sales representative; Tara Jay Loane, 21, administration officer; Jason Kevin Muscat, 18, employed; Blake Alec O'Brien, 20, apprentice tradesman; Andrea Jayne Winterburn, 19, sales representative; and Jason Robert Davis, 22, electrician.

Each of them was placed on a $150, three-month good behaviour bond on condition that they attend a court-ordered drug diversion program.

Amanda Lee-Anne Black, 21, sales representative, of Mackay, also faced ecstasy charges and was fined $900.

In each case, duty lawyer John Aberdeen, of Legal Aid Queensland confirmed that mobile phones formed part of the case against the accused people.

Daily Mercury

It just goes to show that the paranoid friend who always deletes all their messages is on to something.

 

[Splatt]

How do you get charged for having videos of you doing drugs?

 

[lil angel15]

^^^
By being stupid enough to make admissions and then plead guilty to the charges. Just another reason why you should always seek legal advice whenever you're on the wrong side of the law.

This is of course assuming that when their property was searched, nothing was found.

the most bizarre case was that of Emma Louise Fischer, 21, and Tara Jay Loane, 21, who both pleaded guilty to two charges of unlawfully possessing ecstasy.

 

[Splatt]

Yeah, wouldn't think it's something that would happen too often. I have heard police try to scare me with "past drug possession/use" charges though, but nothing was on tape, it was while in cuffs for umm.. passing out in the city, and nothing came out of it, besides my friend who had one pill on them. But because it was an arrow design, and not some typical car or cartoon logo he said it was a pharmecutical, and they gave it back to him, even though it looked dodgey as, and the baggie had a tiny bit of chopped/spun weed left in it.

They only arrested us because it was 7.30pm and looked bad in front of a restaurant full of arab and asian tourists and people complained, then basically just wanted to make fun of us in the station, trying to mess with our heads by saying in south park's Mr Mackays voice "mmmmkay drugs are good" over and over, and when I asked why he kept saying that he said "you're tripping I'm not even talking," while he kept staring at me with a grin on his face.

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

It just goes to show that the paranoid friend who always deletes all their messages is on to something.

Not really, for a small fee the police can pull all the records they want from your phone that are stored remotely with you telco, contacts, call register and four months worth of SMS's. If your friend was smart they wouldn't use sms, period

 

[marklar_the_23rd]

that is such a low act by the police, and the paper.

For some reason i find the publishing of their names quite a vulgar and spiteful act

 

[lil angel15]

Not really, for a small fee the police can pull all the records they want from your phone that are stored remotely with you telco, contacts, call register and four months worth of SMS's. If your friend was smart they wouldn't use sms, period

I'm not sure where you got your information regarding SMS's from but when Telstra's legal department was contacted - last year in regards to a similar discussion by Fry-d, they had this to say;

when you say we keep the SMS, you need to be very clear that we only keep the details of the sending and receiving of the SMS not the content of the message (which is only kept for 1 week) as advised and copied again for you below.

Our system does keep a record of the sender of the SMS message, the time the SMS message was sent and details of the recipient of the SMS message for 7 years for billing records.

However, Optus added a little further information;

Thankyou for your email, as stated in my first email to you, the contents of a sms is kept on the Optus network, for 1 week if not delivered, and 3 hours if delivered.

If the Authorities or Australian Government need the sms message, they could possibly have resources where they could retrieve the message, but that is information you would need to obtain from the Police or the Government themselves

Care to enlighten us more in this matter???

 

[Splatt]

Its pretty common to see names printed in the paper, in fact it happens to pretty much everyone. Its not that hard to walk into a court and take a seat, you can usually spot the media people quite easily.

I wonder if it is illegal to bring an audio recorder into a court, especially local and most district courts where they don't search you at all. Its only the capital cities they seem to search you for weapons or walk therough scanners. All you ever see in other courts is a no mobile sign. And free milk, tea, coffee and cookies :D

 

[kingpin007]

well to talk about stuff over the phone is not good either ..

When I send sms to a certain person Im always just saying hey mate how are you ? Hows things ? anychance you wanna catch up for a few beers ?

And he knows exactly what im after

people sending sms saying I want X amount of pills or whatever deserve to be busted...

Oh and it sounds like these people probably didnt delete the sms from there phone as soon as they had finished reading it as most people leave the sms on their phone for sometime and delete them when they run out of room... ALWAYS delete a SMS after u have read it ... simple...

all a police officer would have to do is go through all your messages and find any that have anything mentioning drugs then your stuffed....

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

Care to enlighten us more in this matter???

It's not something I can get links on but one of my best friends went through a commercial trafficking case in Victoria and they definitely had four months worth of sms before they got onto the case.

Also I thought I read something very similar in The Age at some point, they said that some telco's charge a lot (ie, $3-400 for Vodafone iirc) and some not so much (like $3-40 for telstra or optus). If it was in The Age (and I can't guarantee it was but that's the most likely source) then one would imagine it would still be available online. Although trying to find vague stuff like that can be a nightmare, but hey, maybe I'll give it a shot see what I can find.

 

[Splatt]

So I should delete the 500 pictures and videos of me and my friends looking absolutely retarded and schizophrenic? Done
We could just be acting though.

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

I'd go the acting defence. Hell, I like snorting glucose

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

If the Authorities or Australian Government need the sms message, they could possibly have resources where they could retrieve the message, but that is information you would need to obtain from the Police or the Government themselves

Why doesn't somebody try contacting the relevant ministry? This information isn't secret, it's freely available, it's just a matter of where to look. I'm sure that's all The Age did.

Regarding that, no luck so far. Thing is, more often than not the most interesting stuff in that paper is published in the Good Weekend magazine, the content of which is nopt available online due to copyright issues

 

[Nwalmaer]

GASP perhaps a prepaid 8)

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

^^ Yeah, but if you get caught with the SIM then it's irrelevant, they can still pull the records. In fact, having a pre-paid SIM under a fake name just makes things worse when you go to court, it just screams guilt.