Police shrink as drug gangs get bigger

As international gangsters develop the $1-billion-a-year illicit drugs trade in New Zealand, the number of police assigned to gang intelligence has shrunk from 40 in the mid-1990s to just a dozen today, a Herald investigation has learned.

In that time gangs have become more sophisticated and entrenched in the drug business and frontline police believe senior officers and the Government are doing too little to crack down on the growing problem.

A number of police districts have no drug squad or dedicated intelligence officers.

This is highlighted by a February incident in which Hells Angels and Head Hunters joined the Filthy Few gang on their annual motorcycle run from Tauranga and no police were assigned, either for traffic control or intelligence gathering.

Such events are prime opportunities for police to update data.

A former policeman, whose area of expertise was motorcycle gangs and who left the force out of frustration, said his group would gather intelligence on which to base an operation but would often find no resources were available to carry out the operation.

Small teams of detectives monitor Asian crime and motorcycle gangs in and around Auckland.

One of the motorcycle team has been seconded to a crime car for six months, which the Herald was told is indicative of pressure to plug gaps in frontline policing.

"They [gangs] know exactly how busy we are and they trade on that, that we don't have the time to go after them because there are easier guys to go after."

Their concerns are echoed by Police Association president Greg O'Connor, who said organised crime had gained a foothold and a commission of inquiry was necessary.

Mr O'Connor said the association had been issuing warnings about P since 1998 but police chiefs were saying as late as 2001 it was not a problem.

But frontline police, in particular dog handlers called out to violent incidents, were saying the Government and police headquarters had rejected calls for an inquiry.

Statements from Justice Minister Phil Goff, Police Minister George Hawkins and Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Marshall say $47 million was allocated in the past two Budgets to target methamphetamine crime.

These have gone towards cleaning up clandestine labs, ESR analysis and electronic surveillance.

A third six-person surveillance team has been added to the Auckland Metro Crime Services group.

Mr Goff said two new law changes - the beefing-up of proceeds of crime powers, and the ability to have judge-alone trials when there is a risk of jury intimidation or tampering - would help tackle organised crime.

The proceeds of crime change would turn the onus on to suspected criminals to prove their assets were legitimate.

Assets could be frozen, where there were reasonable grounds to suspect they came from crime.

Once the Crown proved that it was probably so, the onus changed to the respondent to prove the assets were gained legitimately.

Although the $3.7 million forfeited last year under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1991 was a record, it is minuscule compared with the $1 billion the illicit drug industry is estimated to be worth a year.

Mr Goff: "What I noticed from signing out these confiscation approvals is that I'm getting the little fish, I'm not getting the big fish."

The new law would enable enforcement agencies to crack down on organised crime to a much greater degree, he said.

"And I don't think we've seen the end of measures too. We've given the resources and the powers to crack down."

Mr O'Connor said although the Government's extra money for targeting labs had produced some good results, rival gangs were now importing most of the methamphetamine, ice and precursor drugs for manufacturing P and he predicted Mafia-like tactics would become more common to deal with competition.

Frontline police have been telling the Herald since last year that there was an unwritten message not to target gangs and drug labs because dealing with the labs was difficult and made crime statistics look bad.

Convictions in organised crime don't come easy, often requiring long and expensive campaigns based on bugging suspects' properties and telephones.

"It really is invisible crime," said one specialist investigator, "because if you don't look you don't find it."