Ice baby ice
ON THE LAM - Sunday takes an exclusive behind the scenes look at how New Zealand police helped crack the biggest drug factory in the southern hemisphere.
A factory built by some of the most feared names in world organised crime was smashed by police and customs from Hong Kong to New Zealand.
The drug is being blamed for murders, stabbings and nearly 50% of all New Zealand's high court appearances. Purified methamphetamine, P or ice, is the new public enemy number one and it was being brewed in billion dollar quantities in New Zealand's back yard.
Sunday takes a rare look at how a Chinese triad gang tried to set up one of the biggest illegal drug operations in the world in the Pacific paradise of Fiji. It was meant to be their billion dollar baby - an ice factory churning out enough methamphetamine to cook the brains of every P-user in New Zealand, Australia and half of Europe.
The gang was unmasked by New Zealand police and customs intelligence, who seized a tonne of P worth about $NZ1 billion.
New Zealand's Police Intelligence Chief, Dave Potaka, says they had their eyes set on Chinese Diane and her husband Jason Zhong.
For months the pair - who were the Fijian connection at the heart of the case - had no idea they were being watched by a crack team (SIC)of police from New Zealand, Fiji and Australia.
"She was obviously leading the whole thing. The others tended to listen to what she wanted and how she wanted things done," says Potaka.
But the story goes way beyond Chinese Diane's sway on a Suva drug ring - it goes thousands of kilometres away to one of the bloodiest triads in Asia.
Tipped off by overseas authorities that a major triad figure was cooking up something in the South Pacific, New Zealand Customs intercepted an innocent looking container on the Auckland waterfront.
"Operation Outrigger" had just begun.
Drug squad Detective and clan lab specialist John Brunton says they opened it up to see what was there and found a huge industrial scrubber unit, capable of cleaning the air of the chemical cocktail the triad planned to cook in Fiji.
"We photographed it and obviously documented and made some assessments and saw what it was," says Brunton.
"Then the second container came down with some drums of solvents and acids."
Brunton says they realised they were on to a big operation.
"Big syndicate, lots of money and of course that's always a bit of a concern. Usually with that much money involved life can be cheap.
Potaka says a lot of the raw chemicals were getting brought in by container, which were at times being disguised to make the shipment look legitimate.
The super lab was underway but not producing, but the big boys were making preparations.
The drug ring's financier was Hong Kong billionaire Chen Cheng and an infamous triad member lam Kwok Hong, also known as Andy Lam, was the fixer.
Beyond Fiji the cartel was making its first moves to market the ice. It was a blunder because it linked the Hong Kong financier to Lam.
What the kingpins didn't know was that Australian Federal police were at their meetings too.
"We also had the fact that there was a number of deposits made into the company over here (Fiji) from Hong Kong that we could link back to Chen Cheng," says Potaka.
Back in Suva police had the Fijian connection under surveillance as the ring searched for a suitable laboratory.
"Our targets had looked at a specific building that was up for rent," says Brunton. "We made inquiries with the landlord, the agent and posed as potential renters as well, and popped down and had a look at the place at the premises, got the layout."
Police intelligence was so good that police were sampling chemicals arriving on the Suva wharves before they got to the ice factory. They tracked the drug makers, the ice cooks, who were flying between Malaysia and Fiji.
Potaka says one of the cooks flew out because he wasn't doing the mix properly and they flew another one in just prior to the termination.
"He took only a couple of days and he had hit the mark as far as methamphetamine was concerned. So he was very good and he was very unlucky in some respects I suppose in that he only came in five or six days prior to termination, says Potaka.
There were so many volatile chemicals there that police feared the factory was a ticking time bomb with a potential explosion radius of up to 300 metres.
"We got a little bit tense around those moments obviously because of the potential of that lab actually exploding," says Potaka.
"It is a risk that is taken and has to be taken. Otherwise we don't get what is required basically - and that is to put these people away in prison."
By June 2004 the factory was producing drugs for the Chinese triad and evidence for police. The first batch of ice - a more refined and valuable form of P - was ready for sale. Police decided to shut it down.
"On termination day it was unusual in that they didn't turn up at the lab itself. And we wondered at that time whether they had perhaps clicked onto us. But as it eventuated we found them at their flat and they were arrested," says Potaka.
As New Zealand police and scientists decontaminated the factory the Fijian connection were appearing in the Suva courts.
They pleaded guilty and received prison sentences. Chinese Diane received nearly five years, her husband Jason got nearly four years and the four cooks got three years and seven months.
In a strange twist of fate, if the bust had been just a few weeks later, their misery behind Suva's prison walls would have dragged on many years longer.
"The legislation that we charged these guys with was the old legislation and the penalty provisions were weak," says Fiji Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes.
Hughes, a former top Australian cop, says that as the drug factory was being set up Fiji's parliament was debating whether to increase penalties for methamphetamine offences.
It was lucky break for Diane and her husband Jason as the penalties would have been life imprisonment.
Potaka says Diane was the brains behind the labs. "She set up the company, she was doing all the documentation as far as getting all the containers here, she was paying all the bills and also she had some input into organising the lab itself."
Police know up to $500 million worth of ice could have been made each week.
"I don't think it was destined solely for the Australian market. I'm not sure Australia could absorb that quantity each week, that's 500 kilos a week. New Zealand I'm sure would have also been hit," says Hughes.
Fiji's most senior policeman has serious concerns about ice getting into the Fijian community.
"I think that sort of cocktail with some of these big Fijian boys would be quite... something I don't want to see here in Fiji ever," says Hughes.
He also revealed his concerns that the tentacles of Asian organised crime are clawing their way into the South Pacific, concerns shared by New Zealand police and customs.
Simon Williamson heads the investigations unit for New Zealand Customs. His team discovered the container that began Operation Outrigger.
"That laboratory and its detection as I said has sent a clear signal to us all that we are not immune," says Customs investigations head Simon Williamson.
"Here we have for the first time detected in New Zealand a superlab, albeit it wasn't intended to be set up in New Zealand - it was intended to be set up literally in our back yard," says Williamson.
Police Crime Manager Nick Perry says New Zealand is facing a threat unparalleled since the days of the 70s when Mr Asia was operating.
"Recent developments have shown significant co-operation between Asian organised crime and other crime syndicates operating in New Zealand," says Perry.
The other big players
The money man, Chen Cheng the Chinese drug lord who financed the operation didn't risk coming to Fiji.
"The Hong Kong police found $HK30 million in a safe house which we believe belonged to Chen Cheng. He also has interests in a couple of casinos in Hong Kong," says Potaka.
"He was being held but has since been released and has disappeared. The local authorities I understand haven't been able to locate him so we are still looking," says Potaka.
And as for Chen Cheng's fixer Andy Lam, he was arrested by Malaysian police the day of the Fiji busts. Lam is in a Malaysian jail under special preventive detention laws and is expected to be there for a number of years.
"He is capable of getting false passports, he is capable of getting chemicals, he is capable of getting equipment for the likes of these clan labs," says Potaka.
Lam served 15 years in prison for a Hong Kong murder in 1973. He is wanted in Australia, the United States and Hong Kong and was carrying five passports when police arrested him for this latest crime.
"He is also capable of smuggling and moving drugs around the region. So he was a good target for us to get," says Potaka.
But Operation Outrigger didn't hit all its targets. Another dangerous triad leader from the syndicate was also arrested in Malaysia only to be released from custody in Hong Kong three months ago. A witness who identified him in 1997 suddenly developed a convenient loss of memory.
That triad gangster is Chan Yaw-Hong - brother of one of most the infamous triad leaders the late Tiger of Wan Chai, Andely Chan.
His brother fled Hong Kong in 1994 during a bloody triad turf war that resulted in the murder of Andely Chan.
Potaka says it's not over. "It's never all over as far as those people are concerned because they always come back again."
A factory built by some of the most feared names in world organised crime was smashed by police and customs from Hong Kong to New Zealand.
The drug is being blamed for murders, stabbings and nearly 50% of all New Zealand's high court appearances. Purified methamphetamine, P or ice, is the new public enemy number one and it was being brewed in billion dollar quantities in New Zealand's back yard.
Sunday takes a rare look at how a Chinese triad gang tried to set up one of the biggest illegal drug operations in the world in the Pacific paradise of Fiji. It was meant to be their billion dollar baby - an ice factory churning out enough methamphetamine to cook the brains of every P-user in New Zealand, Australia and half of Europe.
The gang was unmasked by New Zealand police and customs intelligence, who seized a tonne of P worth about $NZ1 billion.
New Zealand's Police Intelligence Chief, Dave Potaka, says they had their eyes set on Chinese Diane and her husband Jason Zhong.
For months the pair - who were the Fijian connection at the heart of the case - had no idea they were being watched by a crack team (SIC)of police from New Zealand, Fiji and Australia.
"She was obviously leading the whole thing. The others tended to listen to what she wanted and how she wanted things done," says Potaka.
But the story goes way beyond Chinese Diane's sway on a Suva drug ring - it goes thousands of kilometres away to one of the bloodiest triads in Asia.
Tipped off by overseas authorities that a major triad figure was cooking up something in the South Pacific, New Zealand Customs intercepted an innocent looking container on the Auckland waterfront.
"Operation Outrigger" had just begun.
Drug squad Detective and clan lab specialist John Brunton says they opened it up to see what was there and found a huge industrial scrubber unit, capable of cleaning the air of the chemical cocktail the triad planned to cook in Fiji.
"We photographed it and obviously documented and made some assessments and saw what it was," says Brunton.
"Then the second container came down with some drums of solvents and acids."
Brunton says they realised they were on to a big operation.
"Big syndicate, lots of money and of course that's always a bit of a concern. Usually with that much money involved life can be cheap.
Potaka says a lot of the raw chemicals were getting brought in by container, which were at times being disguised to make the shipment look legitimate.
The super lab was underway but not producing, but the big boys were making preparations.
The drug ring's financier was Hong Kong billionaire Chen Cheng and an infamous triad member lam Kwok Hong, also known as Andy Lam, was the fixer.
Beyond Fiji the cartel was making its first moves to market the ice. It was a blunder because it linked the Hong Kong financier to Lam.
What the kingpins didn't know was that Australian Federal police were at their meetings too.
"We also had the fact that there was a number of deposits made into the company over here (Fiji) from Hong Kong that we could link back to Chen Cheng," says Potaka.
Back in Suva police had the Fijian connection under surveillance as the ring searched for a suitable laboratory.
"Our targets had looked at a specific building that was up for rent," says Brunton. "We made inquiries with the landlord, the agent and posed as potential renters as well, and popped down and had a look at the place at the premises, got the layout."
Police intelligence was so good that police were sampling chemicals arriving on the Suva wharves before they got to the ice factory. They tracked the drug makers, the ice cooks, who were flying between Malaysia and Fiji.
Potaka says one of the cooks flew out because he wasn't doing the mix properly and they flew another one in just prior to the termination.
"He took only a couple of days and he had hit the mark as far as methamphetamine was concerned. So he was very good and he was very unlucky in some respects I suppose in that he only came in five or six days prior to termination, says Potaka.
There were so many volatile chemicals there that police feared the factory was a ticking time bomb with a potential explosion radius of up to 300 metres.
"We got a little bit tense around those moments obviously because of the potential of that lab actually exploding," says Potaka.
"It is a risk that is taken and has to be taken. Otherwise we don't get what is required basically - and that is to put these people away in prison."
By June 2004 the factory was producing drugs for the Chinese triad and evidence for police. The first batch of ice - a more refined and valuable form of P - was ready for sale. Police decided to shut it down.
"On termination day it was unusual in that they didn't turn up at the lab itself. And we wondered at that time whether they had perhaps clicked onto us. But as it eventuated we found them at their flat and they were arrested," says Potaka.
As New Zealand police and scientists decontaminated the factory the Fijian connection were appearing in the Suva courts.
They pleaded guilty and received prison sentences. Chinese Diane received nearly five years, her husband Jason got nearly four years and the four cooks got three years and seven months.
In a strange twist of fate, if the bust had been just a few weeks later, their misery behind Suva's prison walls would have dragged on many years longer.
"The legislation that we charged these guys with was the old legislation and the penalty provisions were weak," says Fiji Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes.
Hughes, a former top Australian cop, says that as the drug factory was being set up Fiji's parliament was debating whether to increase penalties for methamphetamine offences.
It was lucky break for Diane and her husband Jason as the penalties would have been life imprisonment.
Potaka says Diane was the brains behind the labs. "She set up the company, she was doing all the documentation as far as getting all the containers here, she was paying all the bills and also she had some input into organising the lab itself."
Police know up to $500 million worth of ice could have been made each week.
"I don't think it was destined solely for the Australian market. I'm not sure Australia could absorb that quantity each week, that's 500 kilos a week. New Zealand I'm sure would have also been hit," says Hughes.
Fiji's most senior policeman has serious concerns about ice getting into the Fijian community.
"I think that sort of cocktail with some of these big Fijian boys would be quite... something I don't want to see here in Fiji ever," says Hughes.
He also revealed his concerns that the tentacles of Asian organised crime are clawing their way into the South Pacific, concerns shared by New Zealand police and customs.
Simon Williamson heads the investigations unit for New Zealand Customs. His team discovered the container that began Operation Outrigger.
"That laboratory and its detection as I said has sent a clear signal to us all that we are not immune," says Customs investigations head Simon Williamson.
"Here we have for the first time detected in New Zealand a superlab, albeit it wasn't intended to be set up in New Zealand - it was intended to be set up literally in our back yard," says Williamson.
Police Crime Manager Nick Perry says New Zealand is facing a threat unparalleled since the days of the 70s when Mr Asia was operating.
"Recent developments have shown significant co-operation between Asian organised crime and other crime syndicates operating in New Zealand," says Perry.
The other big players
The money man, Chen Cheng the Chinese drug lord who financed the operation didn't risk coming to Fiji.
"The Hong Kong police found $HK30 million in a safe house which we believe belonged to Chen Cheng. He also has interests in a couple of casinos in Hong Kong," says Potaka.
"He was being held but has since been released and has disappeared. The local authorities I understand haven't been able to locate him so we are still looking," says Potaka.
And as for Chen Cheng's fixer Andy Lam, he was arrested by Malaysian police the day of the Fiji busts. Lam is in a Malaysian jail under special preventive detention laws and is expected to be there for a number of years.
"He is capable of getting false passports, he is capable of getting chemicals, he is capable of getting equipment for the likes of these clan labs," says Potaka.
Lam served 15 years in prison for a Hong Kong murder in 1973. He is wanted in Australia, the United States and Hong Kong and was carrying five passports when police arrested him for this latest crime.
"He is also capable of smuggling and moving drugs around the region. So he was a good target for us to get," says Potaka.
But Operation Outrigger didn't hit all its targets. Another dangerous triad leader from the syndicate was also arrested in Malaysia only to be released from custody in Hong Kong three months ago. A witness who identified him in 1997 suddenly developed a convenient loss of memory.
That triad gangster is Chan Yaw-Hong - brother of one of most the infamous triad leaders the late Tiger of Wan Chai, Andely Chan.
His brother fled Hong Kong in 1994 during a bloody triad turf war that resulted in the murder of Andely Chan.
Potaka says it's not over. "It's never all over as far as those people are concerned because they always come back again."
posted by professor rat at 8:43 AM
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