Sentencing deferred for Mayo man caught with over €160,000 worth of drugs - Courts News Ireland

A man found with over €160,000 worth of drugs including crystallised MDMA has had his sentencing adjourned for a year to give him an opportunity to prove he’s turned his life around. Joshua Ajanovic (26) of An Croí, Tonragee West, Achill, Co Mayo, admitted possessing the illegal drugs at a house in Chestnut Grove, Castlebar on June 11, 2024. He also pleaded

A man found with over €160,000 worth of drugs including crystallised MDMA has had his sentencing adjourned for a year to give him an opportunity to prove he’s turned his life around.

Joshua Ajanovic (26) of An Croí, Tonragee West, Achill, Co Mayo, admitted possessing the illegal drugs at a house in Chestnut Grove, Castlebar on June 11, 2024.

He also pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge after gardaí seized over €1,800 of cash deemed the proceeds of crime at the scene.

At a hearing in Castlebar Circuit Court yesterday/THURSDAY, Judge Eoin Garavan said the offence warranted a custodial sentence but that he would adjourn sentencing until October 12, 2027.

The unusual decision came after a general manager of a local hotel where Ajanovic works took to the stand describing him as an ‘exemplary employee’.

‘I feel he has done everything in his power to turn his life around and put himself on the right path. I only have good things to say about him and am happy to mentor and guide him going forward,’ the manager said.

Judge Garavan said: ‘It’s not very often that you get a hotel manager to accept and give very positive evidence for a drug dealer. That’s what he is! I hope he proves to me that he’s one of the extraordinary ones,’ he added.

The court heard how a package containing the drugs was intercepted by customs officials and members of the Garda National Organised Crime Bureau in a controlled delivery.

Ajanovic was arrested after gardaí witnessed him accepting the delivery and signing for it using the name ‘John Walsh’. Detective Sergeant Darren Conlon told Patrick Reynolds BL, prosecuting, that the package contained 2kg of crystallised MDMA, the substance used to make ecstasy tablets.

Det Sgt Conlon said it was unusual to find MDMA in this ‘hard rock substance, like lava nearly’ and that in this form, crystals can be broken off, put in water or rubbed on the gums.

Ajanovic directed gardaí to a further discovery of 600 grammes of ketamine with a street value of about €40,000, in a plastic bag stuffed up the sleeve of a jacket in a bedroom.

Gardaí also seized quantities of cocaine and cannabis and Ajanovic confirmed ownership of all drugs and cooperated with the investigation.

Ajanovic spent nine weeks in Castlerea Prison in the summer of 2024 before getting High Court bail.

Ajanovic has nine previous convictions of which five are for drugs offences.

He arrived in Ireland in 2001 with his Filipina mother and Croatian father at the age of one, the court heard, but has never applied for Irish citizenship and has no permission to be in the State.

Ajanovic has a Philippines passport and an application for deportation was made last year pending this case.

‘He’s a citizen of nowhere, almost. But as Irish as anyone else,’ remarked Judge Garavan.

Colm Smyth SC, defending, said Ajanovic had had a difficult upbringing and had grown away from his father, a Hare Krishna.

He said Ajanovic got a job in a supermarket but became involved with the wrong crowd and began running errands for drug operators, moving and selling drugs.

Ajanovic took the stand and said his Hare Krishna upbringing was a very strict practice that dominated and completely controlled his life, from the moment he woke up at 4:30am and had to chant mantras and worship stone statues.

He was forced to wear his hair bald with a single long ponytail which ’caused a lot of grief’ in school and his father would whip him with an extension cable, he said.

On his 18th birthday, Ajanovic said he was kicked out of his home after his father sat him down at the table and coerced the family to ‘vote him out’.

He said drugs became his way of coping and he used the cash he made selling and delivering drugs to fund his habit. Ajanovic said being in prison was a ‘big shock’ and he realised he needed to turn his life around.

He worked in the prison kitchen and got a job in a hotel on his release.

The court heard Ajanovic is also involved in an EU bog restoration project in Leitrim known as ‘rewetting the bog’.

Judge Garavan ordered Ajanovic to abide by all his bail conditions including a weekly sign-on and his midnight curfew. The judge noted that a probation report placed Ajanovic ‘at moderate risk’ of reoffending and he ordered an updated report for next year.

Ajanovic was also ordered to complete two further follicle tests to confirm that he remains drug-free.