A West Kelowna woman who was caught with nearly $1 million worth of the drug commonly known as bathsalts was found guilty Friday of importation.
Nicole Hubek, 32, was arrested in September 2013 after she picked up a three packages that arrived from China to a local post office box.
The packages contained 15 grams of the amphetamine-like drug, which once processed, would have street value of nearly $1 million, according to the Mounties.
Hubek pleaded not guilty to the crime, telling a provincial court judge that she picked up the packages for a friend, and had no idea they were filled with drugs until her arrest.
Judge Ellen Burdett, however, said that story lacked credibility.
“She was aware that the substance was Methylone and it was possessed for the purpose of trafficking,” said Burdett.
Working against Hubek’s unwitting-pawn defence was her own note-keeping abilities.
Relating to the mail pick-up, Burdett said she kept where she wrote down times she picked up packages and the money she was paid for the task.
There were several notations in the calendar, with one of most notable offering a $1,390 payout.
“These are not the activities of someone who picks up mail from time to time for a friend,” said Burdett.
Hubek also detailed her footing in the drug trade.
She had two daytimers detailing drug transactions, and these “score sheets” detailed sales of meth, cocaine and other similar drugs at the ounce level.
Hubek said it was a boyfriend who she was detailing the transactions for, not herself.
That was a notion that Burdett also rejected.
Finally, the idea Hubek didn’t know she had drugs in her possession until her arrest was discredited by the evidence found in the home outside of which she was arrested.
Bags containing the drug as well as a police issue ink that opens and disperses upon being tampered with, were submerged in a bathtub, which Burdett said was “physical evidence that flies in the face of” the notion she hadn’t opened the packages.
Geri-Lyn Reid was arrested alongside Hubek, but released and never charged. Hubek will be sentenced next year.
