Big raids smash drug factories

By SCOTT MacLEOD

The biggest attack yet on the illegal P industry has smashed two pill-shopping rings and taken up to 24 dealers off the streets, police say.

They said yesterday that 80 officers had arrested 54 people and knocked out three pure methamphetamine - or P - factories during a month of raids in all three Auckland police districts.

And they said their raids had found new drug trade middle-men - people who recruit pill-shoppers but do no shopping themselves.

"Shoppers" are people who buy cold and flu pills from pharmacies and sell them to be made into P.

The recruiters are a new level between the shoppers and the "cooks" who make P.

Superintendent Tex Cox said the emergence of recruiters was alarming.

"Police found that many pill-shoppers who work for recruiters would often travel from city to city all over the country, visiting as many pharmacies as they could," he said.

Cooks have paid up to $3000 for 30 boxes of pills worth $420 at a pharmacy. But those pills can make P worth $30,000.

"The return is fairly good for the shoppers, and many of them live off the proceeds," Mr Cox said.

The crackdown, dubbed Operation Choker, took place in two phases.

The first netted 30 alleged pill-shoppers. The second, targeting dealers, netted 24 people.

At the Auckland City police headquarters yesterday, officers showed items seized during the raids.

They included bags of cash, crystals thought to be P, a .22 automatic pistol, boxes of ammunition, glass pipes and empty packets of flu medications.

Detective Inspector Stu Allsopp-Smith, of Auckland metro crime services, said a surprising feature was that many of the shoppers arrested did not have criminal records.

"The unusual thing with P is that it's represented in all walks of life within the community," he said.

Operation Choker was the fourth P crackdown in which officers from Auckland's three police districts have worked together.

Last November, 45 people were arrested, most for pill shopping, in Operation Desk.

The people arrested during the past month will appear in district courts throughout Greater Auckland.

Charges will include dealing in class-A drugs.

Police throughout New Zealand are debating the best way to tackle gangs, which operate much of the P trade.

Auckland's organised crime squad head, Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier, said about 90 per cent of pure methamphetamine was made by gangs, many of which were collaborating with one another - something that would never have happened five or six years ago.

He said better laws were needed to target the proceeds of organised crime if New Zealand was to get on top of its P problem, which was at "epidemic" levels.

Superintendent Fred Gere from Western Australia, speaking at the Police Association's annual conference in Wellington, said strict laws introduced in his state in 2001 enabling authorities to confiscate all assets not proven to be lawfully obtained were striking fear into criminals.

NZ police figures show that since 1995 police have made 139 seizure orders worth about $30 million under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

From those, 74 forfeiture orders worth about $13 million were made.

Mr Gere said the only way to stop gang members' illegal activity was to hit them where it hurt - in the wallet.

Justice Minister Phil Goff agreed that changes to toughen the Proceeds of Crime Act were needed and said he expected legislation to be introduced next year.

Herald Feature: The P epidemic

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