Students flood NZ with 'P' pills

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Asian students are flying into Auckland with thousands of flu pills for illegal "P" factories - swamping border officials.

The Customs Service yesterday admitted it was stretched by the pill imports, which are flooding in as officials work on closing a legal loophole.

Customs has seized more than 328,000 pills in the past eight weeks at a rate of 6200 a day, and admits this is a fraction of the total being imported.

The seizures compare with 830,000 pills snared at borders during all of last year and just 32,000 in 2001.

The pills contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which "cooks" use to make the addictive drug P.

Customs manager for drug investigations, Simon Williamson, said the "alarming increase" in student imports started in December.

Apart from airport seizures, there was evidence that Asian students were being paid to let their names and addresses be used for mail imports of the pills.

Customs had made more than 83 interceptions of pills in the mail and at airports this year, a figure which includes non-Asians.

Mr Williamson said some students were buying pills such as Contac NT in China, flying into Auckland and passing them to middle-men or brokers who sold them to drug cooks.

"We're talking about quite a number of Chinese short-stay students who have been paid money to get the goods through Customs," he said.

"There's definitely more than one broker working, which means this is organised crime."

There had been four major cases over summer involving more than 10,000 pills, and many others with smaller amounts. Drugs charges carrying jail sentences of up to seven years had been laid in the four cases.

The students were hiding the pills in luggage or impregnating the chemicals into household items, including one seizure on February 3 of 5kg inside wax candles.

Cooks can make 70g of illegal drugs from 100g of flu medication.

Some students caught with hundreds of pills have used excuses about fearing Sars and flu viruses. Others have been denied entry at Auckland Airport.

Mr Williamson said Customs was "swamped" by the imports and was dealing with a backlog of cases.

"We do follow up every interception, but we're struggling to keep pace."

He stressed that it was ultimately New Zealanders who were manufacturing P. Asian students were involved only because cold and flu pills were freely available in their home countries and were tightly controlled in New Zealand.

"They are also being brought in by returning New Zealanders, and the trade is being driven by New Zealanders."

Customs would approach Asian newspapers to warn students they faced stiff penalties if caught.

Herald Feature: The P epidemic