Ecstasy ring 'passed police secrets'

Timothy Sarah. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Confidential intelligence was allegedly leaked by two police staff to people accused of running the country's largest Ecstasy ring.

Name and occupation suppression for Timothy John Russell Sarah and Darren Ian Hodgetts was lifted in the Auckland District Court yesterday after the pair decided against trying to keep their identities secret.

The non-sworn police staff were among the 22 people arrested in Operation Ark last month, a 12-month investigation targeting the manufacture and supply of Class-B drugs MDMA, or Ecstasy, and Class-C drugs such as 4-MEC, better known as mephedrone.

Both have been suspended pending an internal employment process.

A lawyer by profession, Sarah, 36, was a police prosecutor in the Auckland District Court and played rugby for the New Zealand police team.

He faces 20 charges including the possession and supply of methamphetamine and Ecstasy, participating in an organised criminal group and passing information from the police computer system to three co-accused.

They are Brendan Nguyen, 32, Allen Bryan Cho, 37, and a company director, 36, who has name suppression.

Nguyen faces 28 charges including supplying Class-B and selling Class-C drugs, perverting the course of justice and conspiring to supply methamphetamine with Cho and Sarah.

Cho, who also appeared in court yesterday, faces charges of laundering $317,000 and supplying Class-C drugs, Ecstasy, methamphetamine and cocaine.

Hodgetts, 34, was a traffic officer based near the Auckland Harbour Bridge and has previously worked for the Fire Service, St John ambulance and Surf Lifesaving New Zealand.

He faces charges of participating in an organised criminal group, accessing the police national intelligence application and wilfully perverting the course of justice by leaking police information to co-accused.

One of those men is Shalendra Singh, 32, who faces 27 charges including supplying methamphetamine and laundering more than $100,000 through a bank account connected to Allen Cho.

While Sarah and Hodgetts decided against trying to keep name suppression, seven Operation Ark co-accused are fighting to keep their identities secret.

The Crown and the Herald will oppose the suppression at a hearing on December 19.

Auckland metro drug squad head Detective Inspector Bruce Good said the syndicate was believed to be responsible for most Ecstasy manufacture and supply in this country, selling thousands of tablets a week.

The ring has also been linked to tablets at Fairfield College in Hamilton, where six students were taken to hospital last month after swallowing what they thought were lollies.

ESR has confirmed the tablets were Class-C drugs.

One of their mothers has been charged.

About $14 million of assets were seized in the raids in November, including homes worth millions of dollars, up to $1 million in cash, and luxury cars.

The Crown started civil proceedings in the High Court at Auckland yesterday to restrain the assets.