LA man gets 3 years for trying to smuggle meth-caked clothes on flight to Australia

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Los Angeles man will spend three years in federal prison for a failed attempt to smuggle two suitcases filled with clothes caked in methamphetamine on a flight to Australia.

Raj Matharu, 31, pleaded guilty in June to one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

He was arrested in November 2024 when he tried to board a flight from LAX to Sidney. When he got the airport, he checked two large pieces of luggage, one pink and one gray hard-sided suitcase, and paid a $100 for the extra bag, according to the affidavit of a Homeland Security special agent.

But when airport security put the suitcases through the X-ray screener, they spotted an anomaly and pulled the cases for closer inspection.

Customs agents opened one of them and felt stiff clothing. They called for a drug-sniffing dog who alerted them to the presence of an illegal substance.

Matharu was intercepted as he was making his way to board the flight and taken to the screening area. He confirmed that the suitcases were his and that he had packed them himself.

Customs agents then opened the cases in his presence and they turned out to contain clothes — including a cow onesie — that were dried stiff and caked with a white powder. In all, the clothes had been sprayed with about 2.4 pounds of almost 100% pure methamphetamine and then dried and packed.

Although Matharu could have faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, a so-called safety valve provision in the law allows a judge to impose a lower sentence when a defendant has little or no criminal history and didn’t commit a violent crime.

Alex Kessel, Matharu’s attorney, argued for a sentence as low as one year and one day, saying that it was a one-time offense and that his client’s drug use lead him to people who offered him an opportunity to make money.

“There’s no question that my client was a courier,” Kessel told the judge Monday, adding that Matharu’s had no knowledge of the quantify or purity of the drugs he was carrying.

“He stupidly was going to get paid a relatively small amount of money to transport the suitcases,” he said.

Matharu told the judge that he took full responsible for his actions and promised to lead a stable and productive life.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fisher, however wasn’t persuaded to give him just a year in prison, saying she found nothing particularly aggravating or mitigating about the defendant.

The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, went a little below the 41 months that prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in LA had asked for, noting new guidelines that will go into effect next month and that allow for more leniency for low level offenders, such as messengers, involved in criminal schemes.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nichola. Purcell argued that the 41 months was already the low end of the sentencing guidelines and that no further downward adjustment was justified.

Matharu’s participation in an international drug trafficking scheme was not a minimal role, the prosecutor said.

“He was traveling from LA to Australia with a significant amount of drugs,” Purcell said. “That’s different from running errands.”

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