Police given details of big drug smuggling

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33869, 14 June 1975, Page 16

Police given details of big drug smuggling

,V.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 13. Intimate details of a big drug ring operation were told in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court today.

The Court was hearing evidence in the taking of depositions against three men on charges relating to the alleged importing, possession and supplying of cannabis.

The accused are John Rosewell O’Brien, aged 22, a Canadian, who the police say described himself as the ringleader. Paul Massa, aged 22, an operating assistant, and

[Richard Conway Michael !Hill, aged 26, an unemployed printer.

' O’Brien was charged with [importing cannabis and being found in possession of cannabis for the purpose of supplying, and Massa and Hill with being in possession of cannabis for the purpose of supplying. Evidence from a statement given to the police by O’Brien included: Auckland is considered an easy dumping ground for drugs.

Women being paid $4OOO plus expenses to bring the drugs into the country.

The sale of 6000 cannabis sticks was expected to yield $30,000. I Suitcases with false bottoms were passing through customs undetected.

How the cannabis was packed into bricks with the use of an eight-ton car jack. Big quantities of marijuana were hidden a few yards from the road at a rest area near Whitianga.

Two false-bottomed suitcases of marijuana had a blackmarket value of $60,000. Cannabis sticks would sell in New Zealand for about $lO each.

Two Auckland drug squad detectives described O’Brien as the most co-operative and helpful person they had dealt with.

Detective Constable J. A. ( Lyons said that much of the . evidence produced in the ' court would not have been possible without the truthful ( admissions and full statei ments given by O'Brien. • i “Never in my experience I [have I had dealings with a i(more co-operative person ithan O’Brien,” he said. “He

I was extremely co-operative at all times leading us to (drugs, enabling us to recover [them and keep them from off the streets.” NO BAIL Messrs R. A. Waite and C. A. Wallace, Justices of the Peace, committed all three to the Supreme Court. Mr A, R. M. Taylor appeared for O’Brien, Mr M. Williams for Massa and Hill. Senior-Sergeant A. K. Mitchell prosecuted. O’Brien will plead guilty to both his charges when he appears in the Supreme Court; he made no application for bail. Massa and Hill will both plead not guilty; both were refused bail.

Constable Lyons said he saw O’Brien and two women disembark from a flight from Singapore on Sunday, May 18.

They were processed by the Customs Department. Constable Lyons interviewed O’Brien and the two women’s bags were searched. Nothing was found.

A police patrol interviewed the three men in a car in City Road at 5.20 a.m. on May 25. Three packets containing plant material were found in the boot of the car.

The police accompanied O’Brien to Whitianga where a further amount of marijuana was found. In total there was almost 14.000 grams of marijuana in 6000 cannabis sticks. All the defendants had been to Whitianga in the car, said Lyons, For Hill, Mr Williams sought to have the charge withdrawn. He said that a statement of a co-offender read by a witness from the I box could not be evidence (against the accused.

He added that there was no written statement from the [accused, the car did not beI long to him, and there was no evidence the drugs were in his possession. Mr Williams said Hill’s was a classic example of a case that should not have come to court.