Back in 1974/75 I was a young teenager at High School (I remember the approx year because I recall the house we were living in short term at the time) . We were just starting to experience in this county an increase in immigrants from the Asian region, mainly Viet Nam and China which was raising concern in white, middle class 1970's New Zealand.
I remember reading in one of the weekly scandal rags that passed in this country for "newspapers" at the time, scaremongering about the influx of Triad's, particularly in Auckland. One story concerned commercial fishermen in the Far North who supposedly would place crayfish (lobster) pots in remote areas. According to the stories the crews of Asian fishing boats would leave canvas wrapped boxes of AK 47's and Makarov 9mm pistols under these cray pots for the fishermen to recover. Later in the day of the boats getting back to port the fishermen would transport these guns the 5 hours south to Auckland for the Triads in the backs of their cars.
In early 1992 I moved to the area concerned and a few weeks later was invited by one of the local businessmen to his son's 21st. I sat down with a group of cops, one of who was sole charge at a local station 40 minutes drive north. He was discussing one of his locals who a few years before had been almost bankrupted in a marriage breakup, loosing a farm and two fishing boats to his ex wife (several of the commercial fishermen in the area were also farmers). Once the dust of the marriage breakup had settled, and despite being about to loose everything to the bank, the farmer went to one of the Asian countries and came back with a new "mail order" bride.
Soon afterwards her parents and other family members followed her to this country. They worked the farm and fishing boat and within a couple of years the farmer had not only dug himself out of the money hole but was buying more farms and additional boats. The consensus among the cops at the parts was that something "dodgy" was clearly going on.
Remembering the story I had read as a teenager I suggested the farmer/fisherman was doing something similar, picking up contraband under cray pots. At the time New Zealand was revamping it's firearms laws in the wake of a multi death active shooter situation, and I suggested that if not firearms maybe drugs were being dropped under cray pots in far flung locations.
That was on a Saturday night. On Tuesday morning I got called in to be interviewed by the district's Detective Inspector (Captain equivalent) who wanted me to tell him who had given me the information I had been spouting in public. I told him of the newspaper story I had read years ago and with the consumption of some alcohol that night had decided to add 2 + 2 and get 64.
It turn out that what I didn't know was that a year before I moved north rumours of a shipping container of cannabis being buried on a remote beach from off a private match had surfaced in the area along with other rumours of drugs coming in from Asia just the way I had described. A highly secret undercover operation was going on in the area, and the only one who knew about it was the head of the local station, hence my being called in to account for my knowing privileged and sensitive information.
It took some time but eventually the newspaper story was recovered from some library archive and I was cleared of breaching privileged confidence.
At the time there was another fisherman/farmer who many members of the public thought was crooked. But he was the best mate of another sole charge cop in the area and station consensus was that be was a "good bloke". I left the area in 1997 and last year I was reading a court report in the big regional paper int his area. The headline was along the lines of "Far North Fisherman sentenced for smuggling drugs on his fishing boat". Knowing the area, and remembering what my "public musings" had turned into all those years ago, I read the story closely. It was the (now former) cops "great mate" and his method of importing methamphetamine and precursor substances?
Again fishing boats hiding the contraband under his cray pots and he recovering them later!
Some things never change.
I remember reading in one of the weekly scandal rags that passed in this country for "newspapers" at the time, scaremongering about the influx of Triad's, particularly in Auckland. One story concerned commercial fishermen in the Far North who supposedly would place crayfish (lobster) pots in remote areas. According to the stories the crews of Asian fishing boats would leave canvas wrapped boxes of AK 47's and Makarov 9mm pistols under these cray pots for the fishermen to recover. Later in the day of the boats getting back to port the fishermen would transport these guns the 5 hours south to Auckland for the Triads in the backs of their cars.
In early 1992 I moved to the area concerned and a few weeks later was invited by one of the local businessmen to his son's 21st. I sat down with a group of cops, one of who was sole charge at a local station 40 minutes drive north. He was discussing one of his locals who a few years before had been almost bankrupted in a marriage breakup, loosing a farm and two fishing boats to his ex wife (several of the commercial fishermen in the area were also farmers). Once the dust of the marriage breakup had settled, and despite being about to loose everything to the bank, the farmer went to one of the Asian countries and came back with a new "mail order" bride.
Soon afterwards her parents and other family members followed her to this country. They worked the farm and fishing boat and within a couple of years the farmer had not only dug himself out of the money hole but was buying more farms and additional boats. The consensus among the cops at the parts was that something "dodgy" was clearly going on.
Remembering the story I had read as a teenager I suggested the farmer/fisherman was doing something similar, picking up contraband under cray pots. At the time New Zealand was revamping it's firearms laws in the wake of a multi death active shooter situation, and I suggested that if not firearms maybe drugs were being dropped under cray pots in far flung locations.
That was on a Saturday night. On Tuesday morning I got called in to be interviewed by the district's Detective Inspector (Captain equivalent) who wanted me to tell him who had given me the information I had been spouting in public. I told him of the newspaper story I had read years ago and with the consumption of some alcohol that night had decided to add 2 + 2 and get 64.
It turn out that what I didn't know was that a year before I moved north rumours of a shipping container of cannabis being buried on a remote beach from off a private match had surfaced in the area along with other rumours of drugs coming in from Asia just the way I had described. A highly secret undercover operation was going on in the area, and the only one who knew about it was the head of the local station, hence my being called in to account for my knowing privileged and sensitive information.
It took some time but eventually the newspaper story was recovered from some library archive and I was cleared of breaching privileged confidence.
At the time there was another fisherman/farmer who many members of the public thought was crooked. But he was the best mate of another sole charge cop in the area and station consensus was that be was a "good bloke". I left the area in 1997 and last year I was reading a court report in the big regional paper int his area. The headline was along the lines of "Far North Fisherman sentenced for smuggling drugs on his fishing boat". Knowing the area, and remembering what my "public musings" had turned into all those years ago, I read the story closely. It was the (now former) cops "great mate" and his method of importing methamphetamine and precursor substances?
Again fishing boats hiding the contraband under his cray pots and he recovering them later!
Some things never change.
