‘Mr Asia’ drug couriers got cash, cars, bonus

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 22

‘Mr Asia’ drug couriers got cash, cars, bonus

PA Auckland Two former “Mr Asia” drug couriers have revealed in court how they earned up to $4OO a week and were given cars and bonuses up to $23,000 for , their work for the heroin syndicate.

The man and woman, both granted suppression of their names and immunity from prosecution, were giving depositions in the District Court at Auckland against Peter Fulcher, aged 45, and John David Donnelly, aged 43, on Monday. Fulcher, described as a company " director, formerly of Birkdale, faces 10 charges of possessing heroin for supply, nine of importing the drug, two of conspiracy to supply and one of conspiring to import heroin. Donnelly, a Mount Roskill. mechanic, faces two charges of conspiracy to supply. The woman witness told

Messrs J. Jaffe and J. H. Coulham, Justices of the Peace, that she visited the drug boss, Terry Clark, in Mount Eden Prison in 1978. He offered her a job with the syndicate at $3OO a week. She said she remembered Peter Fulcher bringing her pay to her Remuera flat at least once. On another occasion, she said, she went to Fulcher’s house and helped him count $lOOO bundles of cash. Fulcher paid her $lOOO to go to Fiji and meet' another, drugs courier who was taking heroin to Sydney, but at the end of 1978 she left the organisation because she was getting too well known.

The second witness said he started working for the drug ring in Sydney in 1978. He was paid $4OO a week to break blocks of heroin, put it through a mincing machine, and seal it into lOg bags. He said Teny Clark showed him where to bury plastic rubbish bags, stacked with the smaller bags, in Sydney reserves. “You’d just dig a hole, bury the bags and cover over with soil and. rotten leaves, so that there was no evidence there of anyone disturbing the ground." The man said he made a trip to New Zealand to collect a bundle of about $20,000 in cash from Fulcher, taking the money

back to Clark. He also delivered 50 to 60 lOg bags of heroin to other Australian syndicate associates, collecting $65,000 in cash on occasion. ' • He returned to live in New Zealand late in 1978, and continued his work for the ring. He said Fulcher paid him wages and also a $lO,OOO bonus, and in return he travelled to and from Australia running “errands." .< •

Soon after he left the syndicate at the ? end of 1978, he was ', paid a $23,000 bonus for his work, he said. / The hearing of police evidence against Fulcher and Donnelly is expected to take until Friday. .. Fulcher is in custody. Donnelly is on-bail.