Laundering of cash adds two years’ jail

A methamphetamine cook has had his 10-year jail term extended by two years for large-scale money laundering.

Brett Lionel Allison amassed property worth $711,000 over a 10-month period in 2000 that he was not able to explain.

He paid cash for two houses, a $66,500 gold and diamond ring, and a $65,000 Road Rage custom motorcycle.

He paid a further $5000 for a nitrous-oxide enhancement system for the motorcycle.

The Crown is seeking to confiscate the property at a hearing next year.

One of the houses in Franklin Rd, Freemans Bay, has already been sold and the other, in Pt Chevalier, was passed in at auction last week.

Allison was jailed in July last year for 10 years for manufacturing methamphetamine and conspiracy to supply the drug after being caught in a police operation codenamed Flower.

Last month, he was convicted by Justice Hugh Williams, sitting without a jury in the High Court at Auckland, of money-laundering not less than $500,000.

Yesterday, Crown prosecutor Philip Hamlin called for a cumulative sentence as the offence was distinct from and pre-dated the Operation Flower charges.

Defence counsel David Reece asked for a sentence that did not crush his client.

Justice Williams said the money-laundering charge on its own merited five or 5 1/2 years.

But because Allison was already serving a 10-year term, the judge added only another two years, taking the total to 12 years' imprisonment.

Allison has previous convictions for possession of morphine tablets, possession of cannabis, cultivation of cannabis, manufacturing morphine as well as manufacturing methamphetamine and conspiracy to supply the drug.

Operation Flower came to a dramatic end in November 2000 when the armed offenders squad surrounded a Kelston building being used as a laboratory.

Allison had to be coaxed from the premises.