DRUG HAULS SIGNAL A NEW CHAPTER

2006 Was a Bumper Year for the Drug Trade, With the Crooks Getting
Smarter, and Authorities Having to Move Fast to Keep Ahead.

IT CAME wrapped in plastic and hidden at the bottom of tins of
apple-green paint: 95 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 150kg
of pseudoephedrine - the largest drug bust to date in New Zealand.

Worth $135 million, the haul was enough for over four million "hits"
- - enough for every man, woman and child in the country.

The May bust - codenamed Operation Major - was the result of months
of police and customs work, involving international cooperation with
Chinese and Hong Kong police.

Police seized guns, $60,000 cash, and fake passports, and six were
arrested: two New Zealanders, three Chinese and a Hong Kong national.

It was, in many ways, the beginning of a new chapter for New Zealand
police and customs officers in the war on drugs.

The methamphetamine market, set up and dominated by local gangs, was
being taken over by international syndicates.

"It has really illustrated to us just how influential Asian crime
gangs are," said Les Maxwell, analyst at the police national drug
intelligence bureau. "We knew they were increasing in influence, but
the termination of that particular investigation really opened our eyes up."

It has been a bumper year for police and customs battling the drug
trade. Methamphetamine seizures were more than twice total seizures
for the previous four years, and seizures of pseudoephedrine (used to
manufacture methamphetamine), cocaine, and GBL/fantasy were also at
record highs.

While earlier research and data had indicated the methamphetamine
market may be stabilising, Operation Major proved the battle was far
from over. "The trends at the moment really stagger us just how big
the market is out there," Mr Maxwell said. "Things are moving so
quickly now in the illicit drug scene. It just happens so quickly."

Cannabis remains the most popular drug in New Zealand, with 15 per
cent of New Zealanders estimated to use it. Cocaine seizures spiked
this year and GBL (known as fantasy) seizures also more than
quadrupled, after a large haul of 200 litres was found in Northland.

Police also noticed lsd, hugely popular in the 1990s, has begun to
make a comeback, with more than twice the number of tickets seized
than last year. Mr Maxwell said enforcement agencies had disrupted
some major international ecstasy rings. But although ecstasy seizures
have dropped, police believe the market has stayed steady, but that
importers are getting more clever at bringing it in.

The record hauls are largely due to a small number of landmark
investigations, and NDIB analyst Warren Richards said new trends
suggest crooks are now bringing in larger quantities of the drugs,
rather than more frequent smaller imports.

The battlegrounds are also shifting with the explosion of Asian crime
gangs into a market previously dominated by local motorcycle and
ethnic-based gangs.

"I don't want to underplay the outlaw motorcycle gangs and ethnic
gangs, but (Asian gangs) are emerging and emerging very
aggressively," Mr Maxwell said. Small domestic methamphetamine labs,
known in America as "Mom and Pop" labs, traditionally run by ethnic
gangs, are now being set up by Asians.

Overseas in countries such as Canada and Fiji, they have set up huge
industrial-sized labs, and authorities are on the lookout for the
same trends here.

The reasons why P - pure methamphetamine - is so popular, and
devastating, in New Zealand are manifold.

It is hugely lucrative: sold at $800 to $1000 per gram on the street,
it fetches a price nearly double what it would in Australia.

It is also much more pure than that sold overseas: between 60 to 80
per cent purity, compared with only 30 per cent often found across
the Tasman. Mr Maxwell said this makes it more dangerous, more
addictive, and more likely to contribute to serious offending.

The NDIB does not know what proportion of drugs are intercepted. Mr
Maxwell said if they stopped 20 per cent the pseudoephedrine entering
the country, which might be optimistic, it would mean half a tonne of
methamphetamine was being sold on the streets of New Zealand.

Work continues around the country to halt the demand of drugs, and
ameliorate their social costs, but from a customs and police point of
view, nurturing international crime-fighting relationships will be
the key to combating drugs. The Asian gangs remain the foe of the
future, with well-established networks that have been operating in
other countries for years.

"The last three to four years have been pretty busy. We're able to
conduct busts internationally and I think that's a key aspect and
that's got to be the way we go in the future.

"If we can stop it coming in, we can stop all those things that
happen as a consequence of it coming in," Mr Maxwell said.