Cocaine smuggler Lee Dixon was sentenced to 14 years, six months in prison at the High Court in Christchurch. Pool photo: Fairfax NZ.
A Kiwi drug smuggler behind one of New Zealand's biggest cocaine importation operations has today been jailed for 14 years and six months.
Christchurch air conditioning engineer Lee Dixon was the mastermind of a coke smuggling ring that authorities believe could have seen as much as 35kg of cocaine slip into the country undetected in a drug trade between South America and New Zealand.
New Zealand police claimed that the huge quantity of the class-A drug was imported by Dixon between late 2014 and mid-2015.
Dixon, 34, pleaded guilty to seven drug charges, including importing cocaine, but had disputed the quantity and dates it was smuggled.
After a High Court disputed facts hearing, Justice Nicholas Davidson found that Dixon had imported at least 6kgs of cocaine worth between $2.1m-$2.4m - making it one of the largest cocaine smuggling cases to have come before the New Zealand courts.
But a "striking feature" of the case, Justice Davidson said, was that apart from 97.5g of cocaine packed in a condom inside Dixon's boxer shorts found during a search at Auckland Airport after he returned from a trip to South America on March 29, 2014, none of the cocaine allegedly imported by Dixon was found by police.
In April 2015, Dixon was sentenced to seven months' home detention and 150 hours' community work for the small amount of drugs that a judge found was for personal use.
However, he was arrested months later, when the Crown claimed Dixon was involved in a much wider cocaine importation operation in late 2014 to mid-2015.
A police summary of facts said the amount of money wired overseas by Dixon "potentially sourced up to 35kg of cocaine".
While in South America, he made contacts with people involved in the cocaine trade in Colombia, the court heard.
The Crown, backed with evidence from a Tokyo-based Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) supervisory special agent, said Dixon sent about $152,000 in wire transfers from New Zealand to pay for Colombian cocaine.
Dixon admitted the currency transactions, mostly through Western Union to Hong Kong and Panama, which was sent to people with Colombian passports.
After Dixon was arrested in July 2015 he said he made the transactions because he was investing in US currency, and the money sent via Western Union to South America was for friends travelling there.
UK-born Dixon was also caught handing over US$70,000 ($101,000) to an undercover police officer at Christchurch's Hagley Park on March 16, 2015 - when he was on home detention.
Another suspicious trade involving Dixon was the arrival of a FedEx package sent from Maracaibo in Venezuela, close to Colombia.
The 10kg package labelled as "a submersible pump" arrived in New Zealand on June 15, 2015, and was delivered to Rakaia in Canterbury.
The Crown alleged various communications associated with the delivery involving Dixon indicated that it contained cocaine. However, police never found the package.
Dixon, with his South American connections developed during a previous visit, was a "key player" in the "high-level, sophisticated" cocaine-smuggling ring with a network that distributed the drug throughout the country, the Crown claimed at the High Court in Christchurch today.
Justice Davidson doubted claims of the operation's sophistication but noted that Dixon had little difficulty in sourcing drugs while in South America.
Text message conversations with his Colombian supplier featured code, including
references to "hat tricks"and "scoring a goal", which Justice Davidson described as "naive, futile and useless".
"One wonders why you bothered with such a code," the judge said.
Dixon denied large-scale importation. No cocaine was ever found and the text messages alleging him selling cocaine were "small amounts to associates", defence counsel Michael Starling said.
A pre-sentence report says father-of-one Dixon had used recreational drugs since he was 18 but had remained "functional" and in employment.
"It was a drug he liked using and used with friends," Starling said.
Justice Davidson today said the case was one of the most serious of its kind.
Dixon, he noted, had no previous convictions and had previously shown he was a highly skilled and valued employee.
He was in New Zealand on a permanent residence visa, which the judge noted will now be in jeopardy.
Dixon was jailed for 14 years and six months with a minimum non-parole period of seven years, which Justice Davidson said was required to "protect the public of the scourge of drug importation".
Detective Senior Sergeant Nick Pritchard of the National Organised Crime Group, said today's sentence reflects the seriousness of the offence.
"Cocaine is a highly addictive drug and has the potential to cause serious harm to those who use it and the people around them," he said.
Customs investigations manager, Bruce Berry said the operation is an example of agencies working together to protect New Zealanders from harmful drugs.
"Criminals trafficking drugs aren't interested in the damage these substances have on society," he said.
"Customs and police will continue to work closely to disrupt the supply chain and apprehend those responsible."
The drug harm index estimates the social cost to New Zealand of 6kg of cocaine in the community is $7.434m, which includes personal harm and community harm.
"This investigation sends a clear message that we are committed to holding those who are bringing harmful drugs into our community accountable," Pritchard said.