An alleged cocaine syndicate in rural Canterbury broke the usual drug cartel mould of fast cars, expensive restaurant dinners and machine guns.
Of the nine arrested this week in a police operation that exposed a sophisticated group apparently controlled from Colombia, five, all Colombian nationals, were working hard on Canterbury farms on valid work visas.
Their lifestyle showed none of the extravagance usually associated with drug cartels. They got up early, milked cows, fed pigs, lived in the middle of flat green paddocks next to dusty roads and drove ordinary cars.
Police said nothing suggested the farm owners and managers had any knowledge of the drug dealing.
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According to police and fellow workers, the farmworkers were responsible, trustworthy and hardworking.
Felipe Montoya-Ospina, 34, who faces a raft of charges, worked on a large dairy farm in Hororata and shared a small farm house with another young man from Colombia.
The man, who asked not to be named, was shocked to see his housemate arrested on Wednesday. He arrived from Colombia in June and said Montoya-Ospina lived like an ordinary, reliable farmworker.
“I didn’t suspect anything. I never saw him live like a gangster.”
Montoya-Ospina faces eight charges, including allegedly participating in an organised criminal group, attempting to import cocaine and two charges of supplying cocaine. He has pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury.
Fifty kilograms of cocaine were seized in New Zealand and overseas as the 10-month police investigation dubbed Operation Mist ended with the arrests this week.
The National Organised Crime Group (NOCG) and Customs operation has laid more than 60 charges against the nine arrested so far. Further arrests are expected. Of the nine arrested, seven were Colombian nationals and one was Argentinian.
NOCG director Detective Superintendent Greg Williams and New Zealand Customs intelligence service manager Bruce Berry said police believed the group were operating in New Zealand for about two years.
Williams said transnational organised crime groups were specifically targeting New Zealand, “because we pay some of the highest wholesale and retail prices for drugs in the world, generating huge profits for them”.
“To maximise these profits, these groups are inserting their own people into New Zealand who set up importing pathways, distribute to local gangs, and move the money out of New Zealand as quickly as they can.”
Since 2017, NOCG, police, Customs and overseas police agencies had dismantled 23 Transnational Organised Crime Group Cells (TNOC cells).
“This has seen around 80 people facing serious drug dealing and money laundering offences. Of this 80, just under 40 are overseas nationals from 19 countries, a number of whom received long prison sentences.
“These groups are intent on pumping as much illicit drugs as they can into our communities causing considerable social harm, crime and victimisation.”
Williams and Berry said they believed the alleged crime syndicate broken this week was one of the most significant suppliers of cocaine in New Zealand. Wastewater data matched with the quantity allegedly imported by the group showed it was responsible for the majority of the drug being sold in the country, he said.
As part of the operation, Spanish police found 24kg of cocaine bound for New Zealand concealed in a container in a truck in Barcelona.
The charges against the nine allege the group laundered more than $600,000, mainly in the United States. Police also seized about $300,000 in cash, a quantity of cocaine, and cryptocurrency wallets in the New Zealand raids.
Williams declined to name the Colombian cartels behind the Canterbury-based syndicate, saying police in Colombia were still investigating.
The joint investigation involved nearly 70 New Zealand police and Customs staff from several workgroups.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Colombian police, Spanish Customs service and Cook Island Customs service were also involved.
Detective Inspector Darryl Sweeney, the NOCG’s South Island investigations manager, said the methods used to bring the cocaine into New Zealand were common and varied. One method was to bring in low volume amounts at a high rate.
Auckland was the most likely end market, he said. Christchurch was the hub for distribution.
After two farmworkers – a 34-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman from rural Canterbury – appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday, another six people appeared in Christchurch on Thursday yesterday and one faced charges in Auckland.
They included a 29-year-old bar manager from Christchurch, charged with laundering $10,000, a 28-year-old man from Southbridge, a 30-year-old woman from Rakaia, and a 24-year-old man from Hororata.
A 44-year-old Christchurch man, Rene Bell, whose occupation is listed as licensee, is accused of money laundering $200,500 jointly with others in September 2021.
Williams said the groups were not taking into account that New Zealand was a small country population-wise, with “very effective tools and cross-agency capability”.
“Through ongoing enduring relationships with our international partners, we have a very good understanding of international networks and the methodologies being used to import illicit products in and move cash out.
“Simply put, it doesn’t take us long to identify these TNOC cells and rout them out.”
His message to those groups was “don’t bother coming”.
“We will identify your people, we will break your networks, we will seize what assets you have, whether here or overseas, and when caught your people can expect to spend considerable time in our jails.”
New Zealand’s biggest seizure of cocaine happened in 2017 when 46kg of the drug, then with a street value of about $20 million, was seized in a dawn raid in Tauranga.
Four members of the international drugs syndicate – including a Serbian, a Croat and two Australians – were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 14 to 27 years.
Their plot involved submersible scooters, gym bags stuffed with cash, and the use of container ships as unwitting drug mules.
In 2016, Customs uncovered 35kg of cocaine stashed inside a 400kg diamante-encrusted horse sculpture. The largest cocaine bust In New Zealand before that was 6kg.
The latest operation is the first major raid led by NOCG’s South Island squad, which was established last year and is based in Christchurch.
At the time, police said the Mainland was increasingly becoming a target for organised crime.
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