A drug dealer was snared after leaving a £16,000 stash beside his tower block’s bin chute – then calling up the building’s caretaker to ask if it had been handed in.
Luke Moncrieff had managed to avoid detection even after police turned over his flat during a search of the property following at tip off that he was concerned in the supply of heroin.
But on Tuesday he was jailed for two years and eight months after a court heard his stash had not been hidden inside his flat, but instead was in a rucksack.
Moncrieff had placed it beside a bin chute at the Ancrum Court tower block in Dundee’s Lochee district.
The block’s caretaker later found the bag while he went about his work and discovered it was filled with what was described as “bags of brown and white powder”.
Fiscal depute Charmaine Gilmartin told Dundee Sheriff Court that the worker called police.
She said: “The next day the accused contacted the caretaker asking if the bag had been handed in.
“The caretaker said no and when asked by the accused if he could get access to the bins he was told there was no point as they’d been emptied recently.
“The caretaker then reported this conversation to the police. The drugs found in the bag were analysed.
“They were found to be 387 grams of diamorphine valued at £14,940 and 14.37 grams of cocaine valued at £1300.”
Moncrieff, 28, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin between November 19 2017 and February 23 this year.
Defence solicitor Gary McIlravey said: “He had an addiction and had accrued £6000 of drug debt. It was made clear to him his way of clearing that was to act as a mule.”
Sheriff Tom Hughes told Moncrieff he would have been jailed for four years but for his early plea – and discounted the sentence to 32 months.
He said: “You accept a custodial sentence is inevitable.”
