Susan Peachey has been jailed for up to five years and three months for her leading role in the large-scale distribution of cannabis brought into the city from Sydney.

She was the final member of the eight-person enterprise to be sentenced.

The cannabis ring was busted by police in December 2008 after four months of surveillance from Strikeforce Monkman, both phone and optical, on Peachey’s home.

Police were listening and watching as Peachey and her gang doled out approximately $48,000 worth cannabis from October 2007 until her arrest on December 4, 2008.

That equated to 15 to 18kg of cannabis handled by the group at the direction of Peachey.

However according to agreed court facts Peachey supplied approximately 12 to 15 pounds of cannabis leaf during the investigation period.

With Supreme Court permission, police had installed listening devices and optical surveillance devices at various houses in Dubbo.

They also intercepted and listened in on mobile phone calls.

Peachey wasn’t totally oblivious to the police attention. She purchased a mobile phone and indicated to her accomplices that it would be her “drug phone”.

But clearly the police attention was not enough to bring a halt to her enterprise.

Investigators received a further telephone interception warrant for the mobile phone and during the following weeks established that Peachey was involved in the supply of cannabis.

The drugs came from a large-scale supplier in Sydney known as “Sam”.

Under Peachey’s direction, co-offender Marko Korpinen travelled to Sydney and collected no less than three pounds of cannabis each time.

When Korpinen returned from Sydney to Dubbo, he would go to a “safe house”, which had been established by Peachey.

The holding house was run by co-offender Scott Wardale, who would then pass it on to mid-level suppliers on behalf of Peachey.

“(Peachey) organised for the cannabis to be given to the street dealers. They would not pay anything for the cannabis when it was provided to them,” the agreed facts said.

“After selling the cannabis, they would repay the offender approximately $1200 per pound. The street dealers would keep whatever additional monies they made from their sales of the cannabis.”

A search warrant was executed for a Dubbo premises involved in the drug ring, where 1.67kg of cannabis was found in a spare bedroom.

During the course of the search warrant being executed, Peachey contacted the other members of the ring to inform them of police activities, telling them to remove any cannabis and to be careful.

She then arranged for a new “holding house” to be established and asked for all the money owed to her by members of the criminal enterprise to be collected and sent to Sydney to purchase more cannabis.

But police investigations continued and on the morning of December 4, 2008, the ring was busted during simultaneous search warrants executed at seven different premises in Dubbo.

Peachey initially pleaded not guilty to the indictment but changed that plea in Sydney District Court on January 25 this year.

She was sentenced last Friday to a non-parole period of three years, 11 months and seven days, backdated to October 11 last year.