It could be any office meeting. Morning sunshine streams through the window, staff are sitting around the table flicking through reports and nursing mugs of instant coffee, a manager uses a laser pointer as he talks through slides. But instead of suits, staff are festooned with weapons and gear - canisters at their chests, pistols at their hips, sledgehammers at their backs, their large semi-automatic weapons laid on tables. The armed offenders squad is briefing for Operation Cobra in Wellington. Six teams of police are about to search 60 properties in seven days. Fifty-five people will be arrested, and $100,000 worth of drugs and $200,000 in bank accounts will be seized. The squad is involved in a handful of the most dangerous or potentially volatile searches. [continues 637 words]
2006 Was a Bumper Year for the Drug Trade, With the Crooks Getting Smarter, and Authorities Having to Move Fast to Keep Ahead. IT CAME wrapped in plastic and hidden at the bottom of tins of apple-green paint: 95 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 150kg of pseudoephedrine - the largest drug bust to date in New Zealand. Worth $135 million, the haul was enough for over four million "hits" - - enough for every man, woman and child in the country. The May bust - codenamed Operation Major - was the result of months of police and customs work, involving international cooperation with Chinese and Hong Kong police. [continues 713 words]
