A 24-year-old man from Vorarlberg, Austria was sentenced for a package of cocaine addressed to him he never ordered.
Earlier this year, the customs officers in Vienna intercepted a package containing a birthday card and two grams of cocaine from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The parcel was addressed to the 24-year-old suspect, however, according to him, he never ordered or received the narcotics.
The accused was shocked when he was standing before the Bregenz District Court.
“I have not ordered anything, paid nothing and received nothing!” the 24-year-old told the court furiously. He admitted that the story had a “dubious taste”, and he did not understand how the drugs were shipped to his address. According to the Austrian media outlet, vn.at, a possible explanation for the parcel could be that the suspect had his address “registered” at one of the vendors on the dark net selling counterfeit money. The media source claimed that the defendant had “experimented” with counterfeit bills on the dark web. However, they did not provide more information on the case.
“I do not have anything to do with it”, the suspect said when Judge Christian Röthlin asked about the substance. Law enforcement authorities could not gather any evidence on the order. However, since the 24-year-old has a criminal record from 2015 concerning the use of narcotics, the prosecution charged the defendant with the possession of narcotics.
“You were times in the hospital, where a test carried out with you positively responded to THC and cocaine,” district attorney Stefan Willi said during the court trial.
“So have you ever tasted cocaine?” the judge asked the accused.
“Yes, I’ve already pulled something white through my nose. But I cannot judge whether it was cocaine,” the defendant reacted in a bewildered way.
This statement of the accused was enough for Judge Röthlin to convict the find the man guilty of narcotics addiction. The judge sentenced the defendant to pay 400 euros in fines (within 100 days).
“What would you do if someone in the school got you something?” the defendant reacted to the sentence angrily. He claimed that he was innocent and called the court for considering the sentence.
It is unknown whether the 24-year-old was innocent in the current case. It is not common to receive a narcotics package from a dark net vendor to your address, which you have never ever ordered. Additionally, the package contained two grams of cocaine, one of the most expensive substances sold by drug sellers on dark net marketplaces. However, since the suspect was allegedly involved in the dark net counterfeit business, there could be a possibility that he was also in contact with vendors who sold narcotics. It could be possible that one of the sellers accidentally misaddressed a parcel and sent him cocaine. Although, there could be a chance that one of his enemies tried to frame him. However, the possibility for this is quite low since cocaine is quite expensive, and the ill-wisher could have just purchased a cheaper drug and had it delivered to the defendant.