Mysterious parcels appeared in letterboxes around Wellington which were eventually tracked to Benjamin Rankin. Photo / 123rf
Mysterious parcels appeared in letterboxes around Wellington which were eventually tracked to Benjamin Rankin. Photo / 123rf
Residents of random Wellington homes contributed to the downfall of a multimillion-dollar drug importer when they handed mysterious parcels that appeared in their letterbox to police.
Details of a two-year police operation to bring down the syndicate have been revealed in court documents obtained by NZME, involving tactics such as manipulating NZ Post’s tracking and tracing data, listening in to phone calls and covertly surveilling a man called Benjamin Rankin as he collected the lucrative deliveries.
Over two years, the 32-year-old imported 64 parcels, containing drugs such as eutylone, methamphetamine and liquid GBL, also known as “fantasy” or as a “date-rape” drug.
The highest estimate of the street value of the imports was close to $3 million.
On Friday, the former builder faced Judge Peter Hobbs for sentencing in the Wellington District Court, hoping for the home detention sentence his lawyer fervently argued for. He wasn’t granted home detention - but did receive a 70 per cent discount off his prison sentence.
According to the lengthy summary of facts, Rankin initially imported just over 30kg of the Class-A drugs eutylone and MDPBP into New Zealand between August 2019 and December 2020 in 29 different packages. Many of the imports were paid for using Bitcoin.
Wellington police begun Operation Skipjack in August 2020, partway through Rankin’s series of imports.
Most packages were delivered to random addresses where the letterbox was out of sight of the house. Rankin would track the delivery of the parcels through the courier company’s tracing service and uplift them shortly after delivery.
He used false names, often those of people he went to school with more than a decade earlier, but also the less-than-imaginative “Bren Lrankin”.
On November 13, 2020, Rankin was arrested for the first time. There were 23 imports before he was arrested, and another six post-arrest while he was on bail.
Only 12 made it past Customs, but if all were successfully delivered, the drugs would have netted between $1.6m and $2.2m. Rankin paid just over $57,000 for the substances.
The first tranche of serious drug charges didn’t dissuade the commercial-scale dealer.
In early 2021, Wellington police noticed an increase in suspicious packages entering the region, as well as the importation of liquid GBL.
A media release was issued and three Wellington residents handed in packages found in their letterboxes. The packages contained 1,4-B, a drug similar to GBL.
A judge granted a covert surveillance warrant in May, allowing police to intercept Rankin’s communications, conduct visual surveillance and track his mobile phone and vehicle.
At one point police, alongside NZ Post, manipulated the online tracking details of a parcel intercepted by Customs. They gathered evidence of Rankin arriving at the address and searching for the parcel - a completely futile exercise.
It was around this time police learned Rankin was still playing “a leading role” in a drug supply syndicate importing commercial quantities of GBL, 1,4-B, and methamphetamine.
Police ultimately found Rankin imported at least 33 drug packages into the country between April and August 2021, including a total of 198 litres of GBL with a street value of around $300,000. Only eight packages made it past the border.
Police conducted covert surveillance of Rankin as part of Operation Skipjack after gaining a warrant from a judge. Photo / 123rf
One of the deliveries went awry when the occupant of an address discovered a parcel containing 1,4-B and handed it to police. Rankin brazenly knocked on the door of the home asking for the parcel.
He arrived in his own vehicle, with the resident noting the registration. Later the same day, Rankin re-registered the van under a different plate.
Over the same period, Rankin imported two packages containing methamphetamine. One was returned to Spain as the resident of the property believed it was delivered by mistake.
Another parcel containing 340g of meth was found by a resident of another random address and handed to police. The street value of the contents was more than $250,000.
Rankin’s ‘extraordinary’ character
It was accepted by both the Crown and defence that much of Rankin’s offending had been fuelled by his own addiction, but it grew to such a scale that commercial gain was undoubtedly a factor.
His lawyer Matthew Goodwin spoke of his client’s journey since his second arrest, labelling it “transformational”.
He referenced Rankin’s time at Red Door Recovery, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme. The programme’s director David Collinge also addressed the court, saying Rankin was “extraordinary”.
“Ben has been an extraordinary client. Not one breach in two years and he’s severed all connections with his previous social network. He runs a peer support group and ground maintenance.”
Rankin's lawyer unsuccessfully sought an 80 per cent discount so Rankin would be eligible for home detention.
Collinge said he had offered Rankin a job at the programme because of how well he had rehabilitated himself and his understanding of addiction.
“How will the community be affected if he is released back into the community?” Collinge asked. “I know the taxpayer will pay a bit more if he [is] incarcerated.”
But Judge Hobbs said his options were limited. He commended Rankin on his progress, but stressed rehabilitation wasn’t the only consideration in sentencing.
Home detention was only possible if Rankin’s prison sentence was under two years, requiring a discount greater than 80 per cent from the 12-year starting point.
Ultimately, Judge Hobbs considered it too high a request, but not by much.
He granted 70 per cent in discounts for factors such as Rankin’s guilty plea, lack of previous convictions, addiction issues, rehabilitation and time spent on bail.
That left him with an end sentence of three years and seven months’ imprisonment. He also ordered the forfeiture of $55,000 in cash discovered by police while executing a search warrant.
Judge Hobbs allowed Rankin to say his goodbyes to family, who occupied nearly every seat in the public gallery, before he was led away to begin his sentence.
Ethan Griffiths covers crime and justice stories nationwide for Open Justice. He joined NZME in 2020, previously working as a regional reporter in Whanganui and South Taranaki.
