Wollongong inmate 'ran pricey prison drug racket'

Police will allege Rian Kinloch, 30, of Wollongong, arranged for up 194 buprenorphine strips to be brought into the maximum-security Wellington Correction Centre at Wuuluman, south-east of Dubbo, during his five and a half-month stay there from November last year.

He allegedly worked with three co-accused - his sister Nikki, mother Lynnette Coulter-Kinloch and partner Shae Hilton - to procure the drugs. On March 11, Nikki Kinloch allegedly sent an illicit package from Unanderra Post Office to a resident in Dubbo, who was then supposed to visit the prison with the drugs concealed.

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Police allege Kinloch stood to make between $38,800 and $77,600 by selling the delivery at between $100 and $400 a strip.

But correctional intelligence officers who had been listening in on some of Kinloch's hundreds of phone calls came to suspect the plot. They alerted police and the package was intercepted as it arrived in Dubbo five days later. Police opened it to find a white Pandora jewellery box. Inside, they found two small bundles of drugs wrapped in multiple water balloons.

Kinloch and Black were in jail accused of concealing a shooting earlier this year, and other crimes.

Kinloch was released on bail on April 29. Police came knocking on his apartment door on Friday night and he was arrested for the alleged drug crimes.

In court on Monday, lawyer Jack Hibbard argued for Kinloch's release on bail, saying he'd complied with "relatively strict" bail conditions since his release, and was working lawfully as a hairdresser, using skills he had acquired in prison.

Mr Hibbard noted the co-accused Black was due to appear in court on June 23, but had been stabbed to death at Parklea prison on April 21.

"[Kinloch's] proximity to the deceased has caused him some angst while in custody," Mr Hibbard said. "It is something that has put the fear of custody into him and probably a real fear as well."

Mr Hibbard said this fear motivated Kinloch not to get into any further trouble.

But Prosecutor David Weaver opposed bail, citing Kinloch's "lengthy criminal history of serious and violent criminal offences", and his 13 prior bail breaches.

Bail wes refused. The matter returns to court June 23.