Jail for brother of drug ring mastermind

A jury found Brian Read guilty of 10 counts of importing pseudoephedrine. Photo / Martin Sykes

A man on home detention accepted deliveries of imported illegal drugs for his brother that may have helped produce close to $1 million if P.

Brian Derek Read, 44, of Tuakau, claimed he did not know what was in the packages and had been forced by his brother, Gary Read, to accept the deliveries.

Gary Read, of Tauranga, who is considered the mastermind of the drug ring, pleaded guilty last month to importing pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine-related charges.

Brian Read was today sentenced in the High Court in Auckland to three years and four months in jail after a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of importing pseudoephedrine.

The packages Brian Read accepted while he was serving home detention for other offences were to be used to produce up to $927,000 worth of P, the court heard.

"While you may have been wilfully blind at the outset, you must have known after the first or second delivery what the contents were," the judge said.

He said Read was "a crucial par" of his brother's drug enterprise.

His defence team said he had been influenced by his brother, who was "a strong and overbearing character".

"No matter who he was dealing with, [Gary Read] was able to convince them to take the risk," defence lawyer Matt Dixon said.

Today's sentence for Brian Read will be served cumulatively with another jail term of two years and eight months for other offending, taking his total jail time to six years.