Two Dandenong dads have pleaded guilty to drug charges after their homes were raided by sporting-integrity police last December.
The raids were reportedly linked to a police investigation into match fixing, but neither man faced match-fixing charges.
Enis Muedinovski, a 29-year-old father-of-two, pled to cultivating cannabis, possessing cocaine and failing to provide police a PIN to access his phone.
During a raid of his home on 11 December, Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unit detectives found 12 cannabis plants in a hydroponic tent and several zip-lock bags of ‘white powder’.
His defence lawyer told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 20 March that the raid was a “huge shock”.
The raid was initiated due to Muedinovski’s association with a “second-tier soccer club”, the lawyer said.
In the “confusion” after “police kicked the door in”, he’d refused to allow police access to his phone – but there was no suggestion that he was hiding evidence of trafficking, his lawyer argued.
The “small” plants seized weighed 95 grams in total.
Muedinovski had been previously convicted; most of his priors being driving offences.
He was said to currently manage a food enterprise owned by his extended family.
He was fined $4000 without conviction.
The next day, Burim Muedinovski, 33, faced court over steroid possession charges arising from a separate house raid by the same police unit on 11 December.
Police seized 29 vials of various anabolic steroids from a garage cabinetry.
The drugs were for personal use, had been there for “some time” and he’d forgotten they were in the cabinet, his defence lawyer said.
The father-of-two and former business owner was employed in a family poultry enterprise.
He had no prior drug matters, but had faced court for unlawful assault in 2023, the magistrate noted.
The magistrate warned him that continued steroid use could cause long-term psychological impacts.
He was fined $800 without conviction.
Last December, The Age reported that police raided a soccer club’s rooms and several nearby homes in Dandenong to investigate suspected match fixing.
Victoria Police said this week that the investigation is ongoing.
