An employee at a local pharmaceutical and medical equipment supplier has denied offering to sell drugs to a vulnerable young woman through an online messaging app.
Rishuf Jo, 27, an Indian national residing in Luqa, was arraigned before magistrate Nadia Helena Vella on Friday accused of offering to procure cocaine for third parties, as well as trafficking cannabis.
Police Inspector Mark Mercieca explained to the court that the police had launched an investigation after receiving a report from the worried father of a young woman who was currently following a drug rehabilitation program, who told the police that the defendant was offering her cannabis and cocaine.
But a police surveillance operation observed nothing suspicious, and neither was anything incriminating found when the police executed a search warrant at the residence Jo shared with many others yesterday.
However, as the suspect had allegedly been communicating with his clients through a messaging app, the police also inspected his phone. Noticing that the defendant had deleted the app before his arrest, the officers ordered him to download it again, at which point a flood of incriminating messages were automatically re-downloaded onto the device.
This revealed that he had been in communication with the young woman, a cocaine addict who, unbeknownst to him, was in rehab. Jo had messaged the woman to ask whether she wanted to buy any drugs from him, which the inspector explained, is a crime in itself.
While under arrest, Jo had released a statement to the police in which he admitted to having offered to sell drugs to the woman, whom he knew was an addict, after a period of non-communication, but claimed that he was “just trying to restart the conversation.”
Jo’s defence counsel, lawyer Martin Farrugia informed the court that his client would be pleading not guilty to the charges, also requesting bail.
Prosecutor Julian Scicluna from the Office of the Attorney General, objected to the bail request, due to there being a number of civilian witnesses yet to testify. The identities and some of the addresses pertaining to these witnesses were known to the accused because he lived in their neighbourhood, Scicluna said.
The prosecution also objected to bail on the grounds of the risk of the man absconding, as he was charged with offences which were punishable by up to 10 years in prison, with no prospect of that sentence being suspended.
Farrugia counter-argued that the communication in question had been through a messenger platform which kept a cloud-based record “which cannot be altered in any way by anyone.”
“There is a digital stamp which will remain in existence forever, so there is no risk whatsoever of this evidence being tampered with by the defendant,” argued the lawyer.
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