Sydney heroin trade fragmented—report

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 8

Sydney heroin trade fragmented—report

NZPA-AAP Sydney A unique research project has shed new light on the dark back alleys of Sydney’s heroin market — and surprised authorities by uncovering a web of disorganised rather than organised crime. Mr lan Dobinson, of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, said the available information suggested the distribution chain for the drug was “diverse and fragmented” rather than organised. He was speaking at the opening day of a threeday conference of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminologists at Sydney University. Mr Dobinson said how he and other researchers worked on the project in the old Darlinghurst police station, in the heart of Sydney’s “red light” area, in August and September last year. More than 140 heroin dealers and addicts were quizzed about their illegal activities in the shadowy drugs world so they could get a detailed picture of the bottom end of the peddling network. Mr Dobinson, the project’s leader, said, “It was quite a bizarre location to make the type of study we did. “We were seeking to

describe the distribution of heroin in an Australian city and develop a model of the common pathway in which the drug moves once it has reached the customs barrier.” The report, which was funded by the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, had now been completed, but Mr Dobinson said it had not been released and he was restricted in what he could cover on its findings. Undercover agents with the New South Wales Drugs Squad and members of the joint Commonwealth/State Drug Task Force were also interviewed to compile information about the heroin network and seizings of the drug. “We don’t have any real evidence to suggest how or to what degree organised syndications such as the Mafia or triads are involved,” Mr Dobinson said. “My own personal view is that evidence available suggests the distribution chain is more diverse and fragmented rather than of an organised structure.” Mr Dobinson said their investigation indicated different ethnic groups, including the Chinese and Lebanese, were playing a leading role in smuggling heroin into Australia,

while a Malaysian connection was indicated by recent arrests. He said the study showed how the drug made its way from the importer to the wholesaler and then through a series of dealers to the street. Not counting the steep overheads for the operation, the top men in the network stood to profit by up to sAust23s,ooo ($298,450) a kilogram from heroin peddling. , But those at the street end were mostly users and became caught up in dealing to fund their habit, Mr Dobinson said. He said they did not move up a rung in the ladder of the drug hierarchy. Their activities were generally haphazard and they sometimes sold openly to strangers. “If a user-dealer falls on hard, times he may come back to being just a user. He regularly needs, a supply of money to pay for his drug purchases and jnust recoup enough from their sale to continue the cycle again.” He said a typical smalltime dealer, identified in the study as Steve, made 50 drugs transactions in a week and sold, on average, two ounces of heroin each day.