Jose Manuel Ferraz-Figuiera was jailed for six years by the Royal Court on Monday after he was found with £41,500 of the class A substance, hidden internally, when he disembarked the Condor Rapide from St Malo last December.
The 45-year-old, who pleaded guilty to one count of importing a controlled drug, was also recommended for deportation.
He was arrested by Customs officers on 9 December and five plastic packets, containing 111 ‘professionally wrapped’ individual packages housing brown heroin, were recovered a day later.
Tests found that the drugs were only nine per cent pure.
Today, drugs expert Mike Gafoor, the former head of the Island’s Alcohol and Drug Service, warned that such low-purity batches could be highly ‘contaminated’ with potentially toxic cutting agents such as over-the-counter painkillers or even brick dust.
‘The most common product that it has been cut with in Jersey is usually glucose or paracetamol – anything that is white.
‘If it is brown heroin, dealers use brick dust to bulk it up. They are toxic products that can damage veins. Nine per cent is extremely low, we usually see 50 to 60 per cent, so the chances are it was cut with something nasty,’ he said.
After his arrest, the court heard that Ferraz-Figuiera phoned a ‘friend’ whom he told not to worry because he was the one that had been caught.
‘I f****d up my life. I’ll be taking the blame for this,’ he told his friend, the court heard.
Crown Advocate Richard Pedley, prosecuting, said the defendant initially tried to suggest the drugs were for personal use. It was heard in court, however, that the quantity was ‘far in excess of what an individual may be expected to consume’.
Ferraz-Figuiera later submitted that 75 per cent of the drug would be sold to friends and 25 per cent kept for himself.
Advocate James Bell, defending, said the fact the drugs were only nine per cent pure should be a mitigating factor for his client who he described as being at the ‘bottom of the chain’ of drugs supply.
’91 per cent is useless to the drug user,’ he added.
Advocate Bell said that his client views his arrest as a ‘blessing in disguise’ even though he faces years behind bars as he ‘is now free from drugs’.
The Deputy Bailiff Tim Le Cocq, presiding, said the defendant’s guilty plea was ‘inevitable’ because the drugs were found internally.
He added that a recommendation would be made to the Lieutenant-Governor for deportation because it was the court’s view that the defendant’s ‘continued presence would be detrimental to the Island’.
Jurats Paul Nicolle, Charles Blampied, Geoffrey Grime, Jerry Ramsden, Sally Sparrow and Jane Ronge were sitting.
