'Driven' teen found guilty over drugs import plan

[rahli]

A DARWIN teenager has become the first Australian juvenile to plead guilty to importing a new "emergent" drug.

On Friday the 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted to using a fake ID to transfer $8000 to Israel to pay for delivery of 1kg of 4-methylmethcathinone, also known as mephedrone.

He also pleaded guilty to importing a prohibited substance.

Darwin Youth Justice Court heard that the teenager transferred the money and expected to pay another $12,000 when the powder arrived from China.

Commonwealth prosecutor Mark McCarthy said that when Australian Federal Police officers raided the boy's home last year, where he lived with his older brother, they found empty capsules and documents relating to postal parcels.

The boy's lawyer Peter Elliott said his client was planning to sell the drugs for $10 a capsule and keep some of it for his own consumption.

He said his young client was "driven", owning his own successful business and comparing him to media moguls Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch.

Mr Elliott said the teenager had made some inquiries online as to the legality of mephedrone, and had been told police did not like it being imported, but could not lay charges over it.

Mr McCarthy asked magistrate John Lowndes to consider deterring other teenagers from committing similar offences when sentencing the boy.

"There's a risk that persons involved in this trade at another level would start recruiting youths were it seen as anything less than an extremely unattractive option," he said.

Mr Elliott asked for reports to be made into alternative and periodic detentions and his client's suitability for a community work order.

Mr Lowndes adjourned the sentencing hearing for two months for the reports to be made, but told the boy that could not be taken as meaning he would not get a term of actual detention.

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[Torsten]

well, maybe this will shut the idiots up who continue to claim that mephedrone [and other cathinone analogs] are legal.

[mr me]

Bummer.. I think if you can have fun with it, then you can't import it.

Older brother probably fronted the cash