Mum's drug deals pull in buyers from all over

Students, office workers and retired people flocked to a South Auckland house to buy cannabis from a mother of five children under seven.

Police have raided the Otara home three times, and each time all five youngsters were there.

On January 8, detectives saw 16 people from all over Auckland arrive at the house in three hours. One was a grandmother who said she was buying for her daughter.

"These folks don't come to Otara to do their grocery shopping, they come here to buy drugs," said Detective Toby Stallworthy. "I don't see them walking down the road from their local corner store buying their bread and milk in the morning."

Most buyers had jobs in "run of the mill manufacturing" or office work. Others were retired, or students.

"We had the 16-year-old local, the 60-year-old woman, we had a person from Orakei who had come to Otara to buy cannabis, and then from Papakura, we had old and young."

Officers seized 87 "packaged-for-sale" $20 tinnies as well as nearly $900 in cash.

But that was just a snapshot.

"The volume of business they do can be extrapolated from what we find," Mr Stallworthy said. "For them to be sitting on that many tinnies means they are dealing at a certain volume of business."

He said dealers deliberately kept only a modest amount of drugs on their premises.

"So if they do get raided by police or stood over by other criminals it's not so much of a loss when they run out."

In raids at the same house in July and December last year, police seized 129 tinnies and hundreds of dollars in cash.

Mr Stallworthy urged buyers to stay away from Otara. "Don't buy drugs in Otara and sure as hell don't drive halfway across Auckland to buy drugs in Otara. You're going to get more than you expect and when you do you'll be grateful when it is us that you get, rather than being a victim of crime yourself."

He said Counties-Manukau police were focussing on street-level drug dealers and this was "an example of the good work we're doing for the community".

Child Youth and Family's northern regional director, Marion Heeney, would not comment on the case in detail as it was under police investigation.

"However, I can confirm that we are involved and will take all steps necessary to ensure the children are safe."

An Otara woman aged 40, and two men, 28 and 31, were charged with drugs offences.