Phone tap snares Whanganui kebab wholesaler supplying drugs

Gregory Thomas was caught supplying drugs by a police surveillance sting. Photo / File

Whanganui police arrested a man for supplying methamphetamine and cannabis by tapping his cellphone.

Gregory Thomas supplied methamphetamine four times and cannabis twice between May and August in 2016.

Thomas was sentenced to home detention by Judge Charles Blackie in Whanganui District Court for supplying methamphetamine, supplying cannabis and cultivating cannabis.

Judge Blackie said Thomas, who part owned a business selling meat to kebab shops, had got himself involved in a drug world.

"Mr Thomas, you can be classified as a drug dealer. This was only a window of two or three months, we don't know whether there had been any dealings going on prior to that window.

"I suspect there may well have been."

A text message intercepted by the tap indicated that Thomas had traded .75 grams of methamphetamine with a value of about $750.

He later supplied 1.75 grams of methamphetamine to three unknown people valued at $1750.

During the same period, Thomas offered up to an ounce of cannabis to two different people, which had a street value of $320.

"There are no named victims, but clearly, there are victims, just as you are a victim. You are a victim of drugs," Judge Blackie said.

"You're setting up other members of the public, who are misguided enough to pick up on methamphetamine, down a slippery slope.

"That's one of the reasons that generally speaking, the public don't have much sympathy for people who are dealing drugs."

Lawyer Stephen Ross said his client had been managing a significant drug use issue for a long time.

"This is after 25 years of relatively significant abstinence given that he has been on the methadone programme," Ross said.

"This was a miss-step in terms of starting to use methamphetamine, graduating to low-level supply and it was at a very difficult period of the defendant's life."

Thomas was sentenced to 10 months' home detention.