A drug trafficker caught with nearly 20 kilograms of ecstasy in his car on the Hume Freeway has been jailed for at least eight years.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Highway patrol officers had asked him what was in a sports bag in the back seat, and he said it was opals.
But a search found 20 vacuum sealed bags of the drug weighing 19.8 kilograms - a large commercial quantity.
He was also found with a fake licence in the name of Craig McQueen, registered to a Bondi address.
IN OTHER NEWS:
His Toyota Prado had undergone a professional modification to install a hidden compartment which police believe had been to conceal drugs, but the sports bag was just sitting in the cabin of the four-wheel-drive.
Wiggett's wife and youngest son watched on as he was jailed on Friday morning.
His lawyer Samantha Poulter had argued against a "crushing" sentence being imposed.
The 63-year-old grandfather was living between Queensland and Lilydale near Melbourne at the time of the offence.
Police intelligence led to the vehicle being stopped, but it was unclear what that information was.
Judge Michael McInerney imposed a maximum jail term of 12 years.
The 63-year-old, who has a prior for commercial drug trafficking, has already served 805 days on remand while awaiting sentence.
"You have escalated your offending by committing an even more serious charge," the judge said of his prior offence in 2005.
He did not react.
It was unclear what the value of the MDMA was.
It had a 79 per cent purity and there wasn't evidence before the court of where the drugs had come from or where they were heading, or what Wiggett would receive for their transportation.
