Pubdate: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2002 The Province Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Jason Proctor ENVIRONMENTALIST ARRESTED IN HUGE AUSSIE DRUG BUST Tofino man known for tree spiking and Wizard of Oz A high-profile Vancouver Island environmentalist has been arrested in Sydney in what Australian drug cops are calling the country's biggest-ever drug bust -- $40 million worth of ecstasy tablets. The Christmas Eve raid that led to Carl Hinke's arrest netted 750,000 pills allegedly smuggled into the country. Hinke, along with Australians Francis Ballis, 56, and Wayne Moore, 52, appeared in court Christmas day, charged with drug offences under the Customs Act. Police now say the trio are believed to be part of a "trans-national crime syndicate." Authorities are continuing investigations in Australia and the Netherlands and expect to make further arrests. The drugs were most likely headed for the ecstasy market in Sydney, Australia's largest city. During a stint in Tofino in the early '90s, Hinke -- also a noted scholar of the Wizard of Oz children's book series -- was christened "Spike" for advocating the controversial tree-spiking techniques used to try to stop logging in Clayoquot Sound. In 1992, police in B.C. charged Hinke and three others in an alleged conspiracy to import five tonnes of hashish. Hinke was acquitted together with two of his co-accused. A Courtenay man was sentenced to two years in prison. Under the pen name C.J. Hinke, he has authored both a Latin edition of The Wizard of Oz and Oz in Canada, a bibliography of books connected to L. Frank Baum's classic. Australian police arrested Hinke after seizing the ecstasy tablets as part of a four-month international investigation. "Any organized criminal syndicate dealing in drugs would have its eye on when drug usage is likely to be high," said Sen. Chris Ellison, Australia's federal minister for justice and customs. "No doubt the holiday time is when they're looking at that." Born in New Jersey, Hinke, 52, moved to Canada after playing an active role in the anti-Vietnam war movement in the United States. In 1989, he became a lightning-rod figure in the so-called War in The Woods after claiming that 23,000 trees on Meares Island had been spiked -- a practice that can injure or kill loggers when their tools bounce off long nails driven into trees. Reached in Victoria, Hinke's daughter -- who declined to be interviewed -- said her father now splits his time between Thailand and Australia. Hinke's wife lives in Bangkok. Police in Sydney said that Dutch authorities were assisting them in the investigation, which continues overseas. The pale-pink and green ecstasy tablets were concealed inside metre-long lengths of PVC piping in cardboard boxes. Police believe the drugs were imported from the Netherlands. Hinke and co-accused Moore were busted after police found the drugs in a van parked inside the garage of Moore's apartment block. Within two hours of their arrests, police arrested Ballis at his high-rise apartment. The men did not seek bail when they appeared briefly at a special hearing of the Parramatta Local Court. They are being held in custody to reappear in court Jan. 15. They face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted of drug-trafficking. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh