Speed cooks set up mobile laboratories

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Even after New Zealand's most prolific speed cook showered and donned a boiler-suit, the fumes wafting from him had enough punch to make two detectives' eyes water.

The cook, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sitting in a police car after surrendering his massive speed laboratory to 60 firefighters, ambulance staff and special tactics group policemen.

They had evacuated nearby homes during a one-hour standoff in which the cook poured chemicals on the floor of his laboratory near Kelston Girls High School in Auckland.

Police feared an explosion.

Specialist staff using breathing gear and wearing protective suits took seven days to clear almost two tonnes of dangerous chemicals from the basement of the mechanical repair workshop on Great North Rd.

The lab, still thought to be New Zealand's biggest, was found on November 11, 2000. It was one of nine busted that year.

Last year 147 were busted. Police say the trend is for labs to be smaller and more sophisticated - a symptom of New Zealand's emergence as the world's second or third worst nation for use of methamphetamine drugs such as P.

One of the first signs of mobile cooks was on March 23 last year, when a black sedan twice rammed a Mazda hatchback in Manurewa.

After the Mazda flipped into a pole, two injured men frantically dumped bags in the yard of a Churchill Ave home. Chemicals in them ate a doormat-sized hole in the lawn.

Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier, who headed the Kelston inquiry, said cooks had refined their methods to fit their gear into two suitcases.

Often they tried to elude police by paying rent for several friends and travelling between their houses to cook batches of P.

Increasingly, they send a woman to hire a camper-van for a week or two, then drive long distances to cook batches in remote areas.

Figures obtained by National MP Tony Ryall suggest the number of labs being busted has stabilised at one every two or three days.

And, although lab busts are still confined to the upper North Island, West Auckland has lost its "production capital" status.

Sometimes there are "spikes", such as last Tuesday, when five labs were found.

On Monday, the Herald revealed that four million cold and flu pills will be imported for P labs this year. "Shoppers" will buy thousands more at pharmacies.

Police say pill packets costing $14 are sold to cooks for $100.

The cooks use chemicals to refine the pills and obtain pseudoephedrine, which they use to make P.

The process involves heat and chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, battery acid, alcohol, benzene or paint thinner, and is extremely dangerous because of the caustic fumes and the risk of a lethal explosion.

One cook, Dennis Noel Lomas, 39, faces a lifetime of pain and surgery after he blew himself up while making methamphetamine on a gas barbecue in his Whangarei bedroom.

In July, the Court of Appeal upheld a light sentence, saying the injuries were more horrendous than anything the law could impose.

The head of the national drug intelligence bureau, Detective Inspector Gary Knowles, said many of the acids used by cooks were obtained from businesses and laboratories in schools and universities.

"For every litre of product, there are several litres of toxic by-product," he said.

He had never seen examples of cooks handling it safely.

Gangs controlled much of Auckland's P industry, hiring or training their own cooks.

Mr Knowles and Mr Brazier believe New Zealand is just starting to see the social cost of P because of the massive demand right across society.

Meth labs: the signs

* Strong "acidy" or cat-urine smells.

* Homes with blacked-out windows.

* Cash paid for rent, expensive goods.

* Visitors at night, unusual times.

* Increase in power/water usage.

Sources: KCI crime institute, NZ Police

Meth labs: 2003 busts

Northland 10

Shore/Waitakere/Rodney 18

Auckland 18

Counties Manukau 10

Waikato 15

Bay of Plenty 11

Nationwide 94

Source : National MP Tony Ryall

Herald Feature: The P epidemic

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