By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A NARRE Warren man who claimed a collection of solvents, burners, heat plates, filtration systems and scientific glassware in his home was used to make cleaning fluid has been jailed for drug trafficking.
Zoran Dukic, 51, had previously worked in his son’s pizza shop and denied to police that he was cooking drugs in his unit.
The 140 exhibits seized during a police raid on 25 February 2015 included two pre-cursors for manufacturing ice and a dieting agent also used as a ‘cutting’ agent for illicit drugs.
It was a set-up that exasperated his then-girlfriend who complained of the “stinky chemicals”.
More than four kilograms of 1, 4-butynediol – double the commercial trafficable amount – was found as a green solution in a white plastic tub on the dining room floor.
Judge Frances Hogan, in her sentencing remarks at the County Court of Victoria on 10 November, described 1, 4-butynediol as an industrial solvent that may be used as a cleaning agent.
When used as an illicit drug, so-called One Four Bee creates a similar biological effect to GHB.
Six portions of the drug ice – adding up to 58 grams – were found with varying purities throughout the house.
It was more than 19 times more than the legally defined trafficable quantity.
Judge Hogan said prosecutors were unable to disprove Dukic’s claims that the items were used to make cleaners to clean grills and filters from his son’s pizza shop.
On the other hand, Judge Hogan noted Dukic didn’t provide evidence of sales or witnesses to corroborate his alleged cleaner product enterprise.
Nor did the then-unemployed accused explain how he paid rent and for his girlfriend’s son’s trip to Singapore.
“You may have been making some cleaning fluid but I’m not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that was your sole occupation or means of earning money,” Judge Hogan said.
The Crown was also unable to prove that Dukic knew he was trafficking a commercial quantity.
Instead Dukic pleaded guilty to lesser offences of simply trafficking ice and 1, 4-butynediol.
Dukic also pleaded guilty to being equipped for trafficking a drug of dependence, possessing a Taser as well as 12-gauge shotgun and 1.38-calibre rimless handgun ammunition.
Judge Hogan didn’t accept claims that the accused had a gram-a-day ice addiction and that he was selling drugs solely to support his drug use.
She noted Dukic had been given previous opportunities to rehabilitate from drug addiction during a criminal record including trafficking heroin in the 1990s.
He had also been jailed in 2010 for stalking, recklessly causing injury, common law assault and breaching an intervention order, suspended sentence and a community corrections order.
“I have no reason to assume your prospects for rehabilitation are good,” Judge Hogan said.
She jailed Dukic for three years, with a two-year non-parole period.
The term included 624 days of pre-sentence detention.
