Police demand that former Mr Asia drug boss pay $2m

Darryl Sorby

Police are seeking $2 million in a record proceeds-of-crime action against a former Mr Asia drug syndicate boss dubbed "Mr Midnight", and a former Zimbabwean special forces soldier after the pair were last month found guilty of importing and selling nearly $12 million worth of ecstasy.

Darryl Sorby, aka "Mr Midnight", faces losing his Paparoa lifestyle block, his yacht, $210,000 in cash and a Harley Davidson motorcycle after being convicted of importing supply quantities of ecstasy into New Zealand.

His co-accused, Robert de Bruin, stands to lose his Glendowie home, and hundreds of thousands in cash.

The Crown is seeking $1 million from each of the men, in what is believed to be the largest action under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The two men's High Court case is believed to have cost millions. The first trial was aborted, and the judge in the second trial ordered the jury to return not-guilty verdicts after police refused to reveal the identity of a secret witness.

Guilty verdicts against de Bruin at a third trial were overturned by the Court of Appeal after he complained because he had represented himself.

A third man, South African Alexander Gavin Smith, has already been convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison for importing and selling ecstasy and money laundering.

Details of Sorby's former links to the Mr Asia drug syndicate were suppressed at the trial.

In 1984 Sorby, the head of the Australian arm of the syndicate, was sentenced to 23 years in Victoria's Pentridge Prison for trafficking $10 million worth of heroin.

He is said to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder after serving 12 years of that sentence.

The 54-year-old is in custody again, awaiting sentence on August 3 with de Bruin.

Sorby, de Bruin and Smith are said to have imported the ecstasy tablets from South Africa in wooden crates.

Police say Smith would fly to New Zealand as each shipment came in. Sorby distributed the drugs, which had been stored by de Bruin in warehouses, or at his home.

Sorby claims money he earned was from the sale of diamonds and trading in international currency.

De Bruin, who has no previous drug convictions, claims he was an anti-terror soldier in the Rhodesian Special Forces.

He claimed the $379,000 in cash found at his Glendowie home had come from illicit arms trading, not from drugs.