In the Dunedin District Court last week, Ross Duncan Nicolaou, 30, pleaded guilty to 20 charges of offering to sell cannabis, three charges of money laundering, possessing cannabis for supply and conspiring to deal cannabis.
Court documents said on February 26, police stopped Nicolaou and executed a search warrant on his car.
Inside a duffel bag on the back seat were eight vacuum sealed plastic bags, each containing one pound of cannabis.
Four more identical bags of the drug were found inside a rubbish bag.
A total of 5.4kg of cannabis was found in the defendant’s car, which had an estimated street value of between $12,000 and $60,000.
Also in the vehicle was $95,000 cash and two sets of digital scales.
At the defendant’s address, a further $18,000 cash was found in a black purse and protein powder container.
Searches of them revealed that between July 14 last year and February 14, he had been using the aliases "John Miller", "John Mills" and "Gringo" to offer cannabis via social media.
On one occasion he posted an image to a group chat offering a variety of cannabis called "supreme cheese" for $3800 a pound.
The defendant was a forestry worker who earned about $52,000 a year, but thanks to his illicit trading could deck out his property with a new utility shed and outdoor pizza oven, the police summary said.
The defendant told police he started dealing cannabis "to help people" and admitted selling it by the pound.
Judge Emma Smith allowed the defendant bail pending his sentencing, although imprisonment would likely be the ultimate outcome.
Counsel Steve Turner said his client had never been to jail before, had a job and had good potential for rehabilitation.
Nicolaou will be sentenced in September.
