'I go to jail now' - Austrian man caught with drugs at Adelaide Airport

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An Austrian man has been jailed for at least four-and-a-half years after being caught at Adelaide Airport with drugs worth up to $4 million.

Michael Bortoli had replied: "I go to jail now", after he was randomly selected for a baggage examination and asked whether there was anything in his suitcase.

Bortoli, 47, from Vienna, has pleaded guilty to importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug - four kilograms of methamphetamine - on September 16 last year.

In the South Australian District Court on Monday, Judge Rauf Soulio jailed the drug courier for eight years with a non-parole period of four years six months.

Bortoli's phone had revealed an exchange of SMS messages of a romantic nature with a woman called Lisa, who was apparently living in the Gambia.

"It was submitted on your behalf that you planned to use the money you were paid or to be paid for engaging in this crime in order to travel to meet Lisa," the judge said.

"You had formed what appears to be an unrealistic expectation arising from the communications with her, and were led to believe that communication might lead to a relationship.

"Your counsel submitted that you were duped into becoming involved in this offending by those unreal expectations."

Judge Soulio accepted that Bortoli was manipulated into being involved in the crime as a result of a combination of his loneliness, his expectations about that relationship and his lack of funds.

But he noted it was not suggested that Bortoli was an unknowing participant in the crime, which the judge described as very serious.

-AAP